Aging & Working: Businesses Want You to Unretire (and will upskill you)

 So much of the media attention has been on the difficulty for white-collars to land work, even contract assignments. To use the cliche, it's been a perfect storm of business cost-efficiency initiatives, people not leaving jobs, technology automating tasks and uncertainty which delays hiring.

But this Financial Times video is focusing on different aspects of the labor market. They include:

Overwhelmed hiring manager who receive so many applications

How Generative AI is producing a "sea of sameness" in cover letters, which are tossed

The emerging role of AI screeners to determine aptitudes versus developed skills

And, most important to the aging population in developed economies: With the shrinking number of younger people in the workforce, the push by business is to recruit and upskill those who have retired. I would add to that group of the unretired those who decide not to leave the labor market even if they have closed down a career. 

The latter is my specialization in coaching. Here I was a guest on the subject of the over-50 and work in this award-winning podcast.

What I have observed is that the over-50 tend to shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to continuing to make a good living once they are sidelined by no more promotions or even knocked out of the box. That usually takes the form of approaching earning a good living from the mindset of apologizing for being old. Some even will blurt out that mea culpa in an interview, as in "Although I am 62 ..."

Instead the perspective should be on what results they can get for those making decisions about promotions or hiring - and do that bettter, faster and more affordably than the other applicants.

Another self-defeating move I have picked up on is touting too-long-in-the-past accomplishments. Unless they are recent, leave them out. No one cares that you were the top sales representative in pharma five years ago. What have you done last month? And how does that tie into what you can accomplish today? 

A third counterproductive move is upgrading skills which are already glut. For example, the content-provider might take an editing course which seems like a good idea to broaden marketability. However, that whole communications continuum is already dominated by too many chasing a shrinking number of opportunities. 

A more promising solution is to make the radical move to take a whole new direction. For example, I have coached middle managers who were forced out and retrained for the trades and positions in healthcare. Yes, there are many ways to earn a living in which you can start over at just about any age. A former journalist I coached retooled for nursing. She admitted she cried a lot during training but she made it. 

Even those over-55 who have retained their positions have put in play strategic  paradigm shifts. They include Disney's Bob Iger, Paul Weiss' Brad Karp and Citigroup's Jane Fraser. 

The classic example of an aging professional going after a fresh goal who had to change and keep changing is Kamala Harris. 

Life is hard. Business is even more difficult these days. Get answers – and relief. Jane Genova is a results-driven intuitive coach, tarot reader and content-creator related to careers. Complimentary consultation (please text/phone 203-468-8579 or email janegenova374@gmail.com)