If you are in the 40-50 age bracket and unemployed, your problem in finding a job is probably not related to your age; it undoubtedly concerns what you have or have not done during your life.
How did the idea that age is responsible arise? As usual, in the media. Every fool saying that age is killing him will get a sympathetic hearing there, especially if he or she has several degrees to his or her credit. Moaning looks good in images well and people identify strongly with it, not to mention that it matches exactly the hottest concept in recent years (the social protest). An unemployed high-tech worker is of course preferable, but an accountant, lawyer, economist, or a simple civil engineer is also OK - the main thing is someone from the middle class. No one bothers to look at the person's CV and see whether there might be another explanation besides age. It is enough for the engineer to look good on camera, regardless of what he or she did in the 20 years after graduating from university.
Engineer labeled as a UFO
For example, take a 47 year-old industrial and management engineer who has been unemployed a year. He blames his age, while being completely blind to the real problem: he lacks the most basic thing in a career - a professional identity. It is impossible to understand what his profession is. Here is the career he built: project manager, information systems manager, COO, consultant company CEO, construction project manager, company owner, operations manager, a projects man. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a career; it is a mess. There is not a single mistake that this talented engineer has failed to make.
He skipped around fields, wandered among professions and jobs, climbed and descended on the organizational hierarchy, spent too short a time in too many jobs, failed to decide whether he should be self-employed or an employee, not to mention the companies at which he worked. He has aged over the years, but this is only a neutral byproduct; it does not make him unemployed. Unknowingly, he ruined his professional and managerial image, destroyed any chance of being perceived as an expert in something, and labeled himself a UFO. Is it any wonder that he doesn't get any job interviews? The market does not know how to categorize him.
Isn't it hard for someone over 40 to find a job? Is it all a media invention? It is certainly more difficult, but it is because of the pyramid, not the age. The proportion of managers in this age bracket is naturally higher, and this alone explains most of the problem. It is more difficult to find a managerial position, a difficulty that becomes worse the higher the job sought, and more time is needed to find a job.
In contrast, the situation of people age 40-50 seeking non-managerial positions is not so bad. Someone who has had a reasonable career and has found a clear field of expertise is definitely in demand in the business sector. The market is not stupid enough to pass up such employees. It cannot do without them. All they have to do is prove (every day anew) that they are worth the investment - the higher salary than that paid to less experienced and cheaper workers. This brings me to another urban legend that says that people over 40 and students who have just finished their studies are competing for the same jobs. This common nonsense can be heard wherever you turn, with no one stopping to think, "Wait a minute; this doesn't make sense."
There is no problem without a solution
I am not ignoring the tough competition, or the fact that people over 40 have had more years (and more opportunities) in which to make career mistakes damaging to their professional positioning. It is a long way from there, however, to saddling the market with responsibility. This idea will only make your next job further away and lengthen your time outside the labor market, while constantly eroding your market value. The good news is that there is a solution for almost all cases, including people over 50, unless a person is really a total idiot.
Our friendly engineer will also manage to get back into the market; he just has to relabel himself. He has to rid his career of all of the background noise, build a clear professional definition for himself, and concentrate only on the relevant jobs. He must avoid spreading himself over too wide an area; he must focus exclusively on the area in which the chance of the market buying the "new product" is the highest (even at the price of giving up on a CEO title). This is what rebranding means - not anything else.
The author is a career management expert.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on October 14, 2018
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2018