Update Your Job Hunt Skills!

Many older 50 job seekers have not needed to job hunt for many years, or even many decades. You may benefit from a few tips in order to update your job hunting skills!

The economic downturn has caused more people to be out of work. Many people over 50 are finding themselves job hunting for full time and part time jobs. A new survey by AARP found that seven in 10 workers older than 50 expect to be employed in retirement, mainly in part-time work.

The way job searches are conducted these days is very different from way it was 10 or 20 years ago. Here are some tips to help you survive in the new job hunting environment:

Email –   Many older workers have a bit of difficulty with the new ways employers communicate with potential applicants. You have to be able to receive communications and respond without much of a delay. Those without a computer with Internet access at home may need to make other arrangements.  If you visit a library once a week to use the Internet, you’ll miss out on opportunities if a prospective employer tries to reach you on the days you are not checking email. Use a friend’s computer to check your email—you can use gmail.com, yahoo.com or hotmail.com, among others, to set up a free email account to access from anywhere.

Cell Phone – Provide a cell phone number on your resume and carry your cell phone with you. Almost everyone carries a cell phone today so they can be accessible.  Many older people get a cell phone but don’t always carry it with them. Get in the habit of carrying your phone because you never know when a potential employer may call.

Network – Develop your network of contacts; the more people who know you are looking for work, the better your chances of finding work. One of the advantages of being older is that you probably know a lot more people than you think. When you sit down and write down everyone you know you will find your network is extensive.

Internet – Use the internet to view job search sites, as well as to view job postings on individual corporate web sites.  If you are not used to using the internet for job hunting, the number of sites can seem overwhelming. Plus, you don’t want to waste a lot of time browsing sites that won’t helpful for your job search. Query your friends and find out which ones have recently looked for a job and find out from them which sites were helpful. The Senior Job Bank is an excellent, free, resource for job seekers over the age of 50. You can look for work on this site and employers from all over the country are also looking at you.. Visitors to the site can check out the company list on the Job Seekers page. Job seekers should continue to check this site on a regular basis as new jobs are added daily.

No cost help programs – Locate programs that help with job training and employ-ability skills for older workers, such as the One-Stop Career Centers. One-Stop Career Centers provide job seekers with training referrals, career counseling, job listings, and similar employment-related services, Also check out your local library and see what free programs they offer.

Companies Actively Seeking Older Workers – Some large companies are actually courting baby boomers! These include such large and well known employers as S.C. Johnson & Co. and CVS. While some may not be local, many cities practically have a CVS store on every corner. Do some research on good employers for baby boomers.

Today’s older worker wants jobs stability and a decent income. But we also want more. As we get mature, a good paycheck and benefits are not enough. Older workers want satisfaction, and they want to be able to balance work with a personal life.

Our criteria for including suggestions includes:

• A flexible job schedule that can be structured around the other parts of your life.
• An opportunity to get excited about working every day because the things you do matter. This could mean they matter because you are helping others, or they could matter because you get more control over your day to day duties.

What are some good opportunities in the current market that can give you satisfaction and flexiblity, plus pay the mortgage? Consider these ideas you may not have considered.

Non Profits

Could you start a nonprofit organization instead of a traditional for profit business? This can provide an opportunity for you to found a charity or foundation that can make a difference by solving world, national, or local problems that matter to you.

If you are not ready to start your own not for profit enterprise, you may find the career you seek by working for one that already exists.

Flexible Financial Careers

Many financial careers can also be performed on a full or part time basis, and many companies will allow you to base your office at home too! Lots of very productinve financial planners and insurance professionals actually work out of a home office and set their own hours.

Many of these opportunities are only for self employed people, but there are some brokerages and insurance companies that train these contract professionals so they are ready to provide good service and run their businesses. There are also some salaried oppotunities that allow you to rely on base pay plus commissions.

Teaching And Tutoring

Traditional teachers have to stick to a school schedule, though many take advantage of summer vacations to enjoy time off, get more education, or take a summer job. Teacher job sharing arrangents have become common in many school districts so 2 teachers can do the same job, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I addition, the tutoring market is large and growing, and this offers good tutors to take advantage of a more flexible work schedule in late afternoons or evenings.

The Web Has Given Birth To A Lot Of Flexible Opportunties

I am not talking about cheesy business opportunites that offer millions for posting links. I am talking about real tasks that many companies or individual website owners pay money for every day.

Can you produce content? If you can take decent photos or write an informative article, you can offer your services online. You could get hired for this position, work on a freelance basis, or add your ready made contents for sale on websites that have been made for this reason.

Virtual assistants do everything from install websites to fill out spreadsheets. Busy website managers and owners look for people to do some of the daily tasks. Some require technical skills, but many are quite simple.

Have You Found Work Life Balance?

If you have any great ideas for flexible jobs that can help you balance your work day and your personal life, we’d love to hear them!

Is Your Resume Current or Outdated?

Back in the day, we all learned how to write a resume. It may have been in a Business Communications class or from a job resource center. However, this generation of employers and human resources people have different expectations than the ones we grew up with. Your resume may be dating you!

What Can You Do For Me?

Remember when we would put a career goals statement up at the top of our resumes? It would tell employers what you were looking for in a new job. Well, guess what? Employers are more interested in what you can do for them!

Instead of telling employers that you are looking for a challenging job with free coffee, put a summary of your skills and experience that tell employers why you would be a good fit for your job. This is called a professional summary, and you can Google it if you want to learn how to format it.

One Size Does Not Fit All Resumes

You may have been fine by making dozens of copies of one resume in the past. These days, it is probably worth it to format individual resumes and cover letters that are unique to the job you are applying for. It is extra effort, but these days, you have to figure it will take extra effort to get the job you want.

Your Resume Can Be Longer Than One Page

Going over 1 page used to be a sin when making resume.  But these days, if you have a long work history, you will be better off by adding another page than by trying to squeeze everyting in with a microspic font.

Trim Your Resume’s Skill Set

Yes,  it is ok to have a 2 page resume, but you still might want to trim some old things out. Outdated skills, that will not be required for the job you want, may date your resume without adding anything productive to it. Your new employer may not care if you could program a TRS-80 a few decades ago, but will be interested in what you can do to accomplish tasks today.

Need A Job?

Well, we have all had a feeling that it was much easier to get a new job when you have a current job. But I’m not sure we realized just how much easier it is. Now we are seeing more and more job postings that actually have a notice posting telling the unemployed that they need not apply. And even if this notice is not posted, many hiring managers already have this condition in their minds. They really only want to hire a person who already has a job!

They may have a feeling that a person got let go because they did not perform their last job well. But in these tight economic times, when we have seen so much overseas outsourcing, shut-downs, and massive layoffs, I am pretty sure this is an unfair judgement. I assume that a majority of the unemployed people would still have a job if their previous employee was doing better themselves. The layofff may have had more to do with the employer’s performance than the employee’s performance.

How can you make up for an employment gap?

Freelance

One effective strategy would be to freelance on your own. There are still a lot of freelancing work opportunities out there. Instead of being unemployed, you can be self employed. This is much different. This can give you some extra income, plus it can give you something to fill in your resume with!

Underemployment

Another strategy may be to accept under-employment. I know it is not ideal, but sometimes the best way to get a job is from the inside.

I knew an unemployed corporate credit manager who accepted a job selling furniture. That company saw his potential and recruited him to store manager in a short time. From there, he moved up, within a year, into their company offices. It took awhile, but it really did not take that long until he  moved up to a job that was almost the same as his old career.

If you are looking for a low cost business startup, blogging can be a great answer. I have to caution readers they should not expect to blog to the bank right away. Like any other business, blogging has a learning curve. It is one of those things that is easy to get into, but really takes a lifetime to master. By that I mean, you will constantly want to be improving your writing skills, make your marketing better, etc. But many people think it is so fun, that they hardly think it is work at all.

My story? My first month online I made $16. I loved it, and kept at it while I worked at another job to supplement that 16 bucks! After 6 months, I was making a few hundred dollars a year. It took me 2 years, and dozens of blogs, to be able to quite my other work and work online! And it is work. I am sure I spend more hours over my PC than I ever did at another job. But I like it too, so it has become a bit of an obsession.

Skills To Start Blogging?

Can you write an email and follow simple instructions on a computer screen? Now understand that to really grow your business, you will probably want to develop more skills (or pay somebody for them) in the future. But you can start right now with one of the free blogging services. It is as simple as signing up, following the quick instructions to set up your blog, and then logging in!

Try Blogger.com To Start Making Money

I suggest blogger.com to start with a free blog. They are owned by Google, and they also allow Adsense so you can start making money with that service.  Adsense is the Google context sensitive advertising service. As an online publisher (which is what a blogger is), you will get ads that relate to your posts. If people click through the ads, you get paid!

How much you can make depennds upon your niche, click through ratio (CTR), and traffic. It takes a while to get started, but if you can keep testing your ads, improving your visitor rates, etc., your income  sould grow. Some . people are happy to hit the $100 a month mark while other bloggers are bringing in 6 figures. I would set an initial goal to just try to hit that $100 a month mark. Then duplicate your sucess to grow your income.

 You will find instructions inside the blogger service.  You do not have to use Adsense, though. You can push other products, or even promote another business on these.

The blogs are really easy to set up and you can customize them. Later, you can even buy your own domain name, so it looks like the blog is one you host. Eventually, most of us move to self-hosted WordPress blogs. But do not worry about that now if you just want to get started. Plenty of people do pretty well using Blogger.com!

Just Blog!

Don’t worry if your first attempt is not that great. That’s the learning curve. You will probably start more blogs, if you are like most of us. Once you get going, the ideas just keep coming.  I cannot tell you how many times I got my next great idea at 2am or on vacation. I just had to get back to my computer to start working on it!

More and more middle aged or retired people are starting their own businesses. Some start them as moonlighting jobs, while others are charging forward to make a full time enterprise out of them. It is easy to understand some of the reasons that the over 50 crowd would like to own a business. Some have always had that dream, while others just want to take control of their financial lives. And of course, some of us just need more money!

Many of us are not in a position to gamble our retirement accounts a a new business though, so we need a business we can start quickly without a huge investment. That also means, of course, we do not have time to spend months or years getting retrained with a whole new set of job skills.

Look at some low cost businesses you could start that really do not cost a lot to begin, and that can even get started while you are still plugging away at your old job! Understand that you cannot really ask which one of these is the best retirement or over 50 business. The right business startup for you will depend upon your strengths, personality, risk tolerance, and skill set.

• Webmaster or Blogger – It is really simple and inexpensive to start your own blog or website these days. Almost everybody I have ever known has some skill or knowledge that they could share with others. Be warned that learning how to make an effective website, attracting visitors, and then actually making some money out of the information you share is a skill that can take awhile to develop though. However, it certainly works out for many people, and there is lots of free information online to help you get started! There are also thousands of sponsor programs out there to help you start earning money for your work. You can learn more about this here -  Explain Affiliate Marketing.
• Insurance Agent – You will need a state license to start selling insurance, but you can usually find a week-end class that will help you pass the test. After that, if you can hook up with the right brokerage and are a good sales person, you can really control your income. Many agents start working out of their own homes with a phone and an internet connection. You can also set evening appointments, so you can continue with your day job. Selling insurance is not for everybody, but many people have turned it into a lucrative second career in midlife
• Bookkeeping - You do not need a 4 year accounting degree or CPA to start a bookkeeping business. I have known people who already had some good business skills, got familiar with popular accounting software, and then turned that into a high 5 figure business.  Small businesses create a demand for bookkeepers, and many start by working on nights or week-ends. There are also some online courses, which only take a few weeks to complete, you can take to make sure you are ready.
• EBay Seller – Lots of professional EBay sellers started out by selling stuff they had around the house. After they cleaned out their closets and garage, they started learning how to source products.  Sometimes product sourcing can be the toughest part of this business for newbies, but you can find affordable and legitimate resources to help you. WorldWide Brands Product Sourcing is one we’ve used to our satisfaction. Here is a free product sourcing video. If you’d like to work online from your PC, this is one small business to consider. 
• Personal Services – One area of growing demand is for personal services. Busy people need their dogs walked, kids picked up from school, their carpets cleaned, a garbage disposal installed,  or elderly family members taken to appointments.  There are many two income families with more money than time, and they would be happy to pay a trusted person for the help.
• Flipper - This business is probably as old as time, and I am not writing about an adorable sea mammal either. Many people, and some very large businesses, rely on an ability to pick up cheap used stuff, fix it up, and resell it for premium prices. They flip merchandise, often after fixing it so it works or looks good. I know a woman who purchases old furniture at garage sales, applies some sandpaper, varnish, and paint, and then resells it in her thrift shop for a several hundred percent markup. If you have the skills, or the ability get skilled work done at a price ou can still profit on, this may be a fun and rewarding business for you!

Get some more tips - 5 simple home business ideas to start today!

A lot of us boomers have been through this. We were educated and experienced in a certain career that just longer became vaiable for us for a variety of different reasons. There could be many reasons why years of schooling and decades of experience just did not help employment prospects.  Some of them are caused by factors outside a person’s control, but some may just rise from changes in your own attitudes or situation. 

Whatever the reason, older workers are likely to have responsibilities that are not so eaasy to get out of. A home mortgage, car payments, and other family members may rely upon our incomes. So even though a career change is called for, we know we do not have 4 years to spend in college in order to accomplish this goal.

Look at some reasons that older workers may look for quick career changes.  

• Outsourcing or employee closings reduced the local demand for our job skill. We were just at a point in our lives where moving to another city or state was not a great option.  We may have a settled life we love in our own city, a home that would be tough to sell, or other family members we need to take care of. There are lots of valid reasons why some people cannot be flexible about geographic location.
• An injury or infirmaty made our job a health hazard. This can happen to a lot of people, and not just older employees with physical or dangerous jobs. People with computer jobs can develop problems like carpal tunnel syndrome that make it painful to work on a keyboard all day.
• We just get burned out. You can work in a field for 20 years, and then just wake up one morning realizing you cannot stand the thought of spending one more day in your current line of work. This can be a very real problem that can cause depression. Sometimes we all just need a job change! The old adage – a change is as good as a rest – is so true as we look for midlife job changes.

So while we may all agree that it is, sometimes, more difficult for a 50+ person to seek out a new direction, we also agree that, sometimes, we just need to go for it anyway. And mature workers do have some strengths that younger workers may lack. Many boomers have successfully, and happily, navigated a new stream though.

Here are some things to consider if you are trying to figure out your next move.

• What have you always dreamed about doing? In my experience, people tend to do well when they do what they like to do! You do not have to hate your work. I admit that there is no job that does not have some less pleasant tasks involved in it, but it is really key to find work that is mostly satisfying. It may not be practical of a 60 year old to enter medical school to become a doctor, but there are other jobs in the medical field that have lower barriers to entry.
• What do you like about your current or former jobs? Again, think about your strengths or the tasks you did enjoy. For example, Tim was a computer systems analyst for 20 years after graduating with a computer science degree. He got tired  of heavy duty programming, but found that he did enjoy training others in his tasks. After he was laid off because of outsourcing, he found that he could actually work as a technical trainer in a local community college because of his experience. He made up for a lower starting salary by downsizing his lifestyle a bit and taking some freelance programming jobs once in awhile. He found that when he could just write actual computer code a few times a month, and got to teach during the days, he begain to enjoy working with computers again.
• What is a realistic game plan? Get some ideas for jobs you think you could, and would want to, move into. Research the best moves you could make to actually realize your career move. And then sit down and start to take steps to get your boat into the next stream!