Landing a job when you’re over 50

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

For the last few months, Christine Duncan, 53, has been looking for a full-time job that offers benefits because her husband’s structural steel drafting business has been struggling in this economy.

Duncan, who was the bookkeeper at his company, was recently able to land some temporary work during tax season, but permanent jobs are hard to come by in Denver. She often scours job listings on Craigslist and Monster, is on Twitter and LinkedIn, and has signed up with several temp agencies to no avail.

She doesn’t think her age is keeping her from landing a gig, but the one interview she went on last month was with a woman in her 30s who was wearing expensive designer jeans. “I knew I was not going to get the job because I didn’t fit in,” Duncan said.

Myles Falvella, 57, lost his job last year doing marketing and market analysis for Level 3 Communications in Pittsburgh and has been looking ever since.

He’s been doing a lot of networking and has hit the job boards heavily, but despite getting one or two interviews a month, no positions have materialized.

“Being older, while there isn’t stated discrimination in terms of age, doesn’t play well,” he surmised. “I would think it would be a factor.”

Neither Duncan nor Falvella believe they’re victims of age bias, but they are unfortunately living a painful reality: It’s harder for workers who are over 50 to find employment.

According to the AARP, the average length of unemployment for those 55 and older is 29.9 weeks, compared to 21.4 weeks for those under 55.

Dismal numbers to be sure. But clearly, older workers are landing interviews and finding great jobs every day. How do they do it?

Here are five strategies from successful job seekers who are 50-plus:

Sweat a lot
Ella Newman, who is over 50 and left her company after a merger, found her dream job within six months in one of the toughest hit industries of all: finance. The one thing she points to for her success was hard work.

“I had to find something before my benefits ran out,” she said. “I worked at my search from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week, until I found the perfect job.”

She is now senior vice president at Fiduciary Trust Company International in New York.

Her game plan each day was as follows:

• Wake up. Write e-mails and letters. This included e-mails to people she knew or were recommended to her, and notes to people she connected with, even hand-written letters to people she met, especially hiring managers.
• Go to as many appointments as possible, including general networking lunches, informational interviews and real interviews.
• Spend the rest of the day researching employers and jobs.

“You have to make finding a job your full-time job and put all your effort into it if you want to get a job in a reasonable amount of time,” she said.

Look tech savvy
The last thing you need is an employer thinking you’re too old to get all the latest and greatest technological advances.

When Bob Dixon, 57, realized there was a chance he was going to lose his job at a semiconductor firm because of business conditions, he started working on a Web site to promote himself and putting together a multimedia resume known as a VisualCV.

“I needed to feel like I was doing something proactive,” he said.

Dixon, who lives in Windham, N.H., said he has found contacts through the Web site, and hiring managers have been impressed by his cyber resume. He has already scored many job interviews and actually withdrew himself from consideration for a few jobs that he looked likely to get because they weren’t the right fit.

“I want something that involves global sourcing or realigning a supply chain for a company,” said Dixon, who has significant experience in Asia, having worked with manufacturers there in his previous job. “For me, it’s not just about getting a job. It’s also about finding a position in a company where all of my experience can contribute to the success and company goals.”

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