Category Archives: Older Workers

Daring to seek new opportunities

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Entrepreneur and fitness expert, Betty Perkins-Carpenter, 85, has met life’s challenges with dedication, tenacity and persistence, which are hallmarks of conscious leaders. Here, she shares three tips to help others dare to seek new opportunities.

#1 Make a new beginning
At 72, I decided to go back to school and get my Ph.D. to continue my life’s work researching balance as part of my Senior Fitness business. In addition to research, my experience working with babies, preschoolers, elite Olympic athletes and seniors, on land and in water, led me to develop the Six-Step Balance SystemTM.

#2 Take chances and have fun
I started teaching swimming lessons in my backyard pool, which was risky. My business grew from taking chances and having fun. After 55 years in business, I still love getting up in the morning and helping people lead happier, healthier and active lives.

#3 Nothing is impossible
My veterans post commander gave me nearly 300 photos of soldiers taken at the beginning of the Korean War. I wanted to find these veterans and give photos to them or their families. In sharing my story, I found people willing to help. Because of their dedication and hard work, we created the Snapshots from the Korean War Project. Photos can be viewed at koreanwar.democratandchronicle.com.

Posted on behalf of Betty Perkins-Carpenter
by
Paul G. Ward
President, 2Young2Retire, LLC

The Striking French

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Driving to the first of two yoga teaching gigs yesterday, I listened to a report on NPR that Paris was all but shut down by unions striking against the proposed rise of retirement age from — get this — 60 to 62.   Flights were disrupted and even the Eiffel Tower was closed to tourists.  A few weeks ago, when the movement (if one can call it that) for status quo was just heating up, I heard a couple who had just turned 60, offer an argument you won’t hear on this side of the Atlantic so much these days, that they some how deserve to retire.  They felt they had paid into the pension funds and were fortunate that their pensions would not be threatened by the new law, if indeed it is passed.  In the background, one could hear the voices of their grandchildren for whom they offer care one afternoon a week because they enjoy it.

Contrast this to the desire of most Americans — I’m one of them –to continue to work and not only out of financial necessity, although that is certainly a factor given the sorry rate of saving and investments of many older adults.  The new MetLife Mature Market Institute Study finds “startling” the news that many Early Boomers plan to remain in the labor market.  But if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know that we believe that money is not the only driver for the choice to continue to work.  We happen to think we will remain healthier for it — that alone is a good way to give back.  And unlike our French cohorts, we take a certain pride in continuing to contribute actively to society and to the well-being of future generations, including our own grandchildren, if we have them.   I admire many things about French culture — the food, the art, the joie de vivre, and the fact that the welfare of children is a national priority.  How they will reconcile childcare costs with an aging population that wants to be supported for 25 or more years is the question.  Send in the grownups.

Generational Warfare

No One Will Hire Me …

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(…I’m too old.)  Of all the self-defeating statements we hear from people 60 and older who are in need of a job, this has to be the most common and saddest.  No doubt, this belief is based on personal experience with ageism, losing out to a younger competitor, for example.  Or simply finding that the strategies that worked before — a dynamite resume, power networking  — aren’t producing the desired result, especially in the current economic climate.   Ageism isn’t going to disappear, and we might do well to take the advice of employment counselors, weary of the complaint: “Get over it!”

Here, according to a new study from MetLife Mature Market Institute are seven common mistakes older job seekers must correct if they are to be successful in finding work.

• “I’ll just do what I was doing before.”
• “My experience speaks for itself.”
• “I don’t have time for this touchy-feely stuff about what work means to me.”
• “I know! I’ll become a consultant!”
• “Of course I’m good with computers.”
• “I’ll just use a recruiter for some career coaching.”
• “I’ve always been successful, so why should things be different now?”

If you are looking for work and any of these misconceptions ring a bell with you, take the time to download and read Buddy, Can You Spare a Job?  The MetLife Study of the New Realities of the Job Market for Aging Baby Boomers (October ’09).  It just might turn your head around.  As the study says, “Wishful thinking is not a job search method.”  Resilience, a willingness to relocate, and the motivation to learn new skills are absolute musts if you are seeking a job at 60 or older.  Or at any age, for that matter.

50+? The Peace Corps Wants You

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“Do people tell you you`re over the hill? … What if you were?  Over the hill, over a stream and over an ocean.  To another continent.  Thousands of miles from your own. Where elders are looked to as leaders …”

If you’re over 50 and have ever been attracted to becoming a Peace Corps volunteer, this advertising message should alert you to the fact that the Peace Corps is recruiting older adults, for their maturity, life and business experience, and transferable skills.  Of the approximately 7,800 volunteers around the world, people 50 and older make up 5%, or fewer than 400.  Host nations are asking for volunteers who can offer real-world experience in technical fields, business development, agribusiness or teaching, rather than young adults right out of college, says Rosie Mauk, the Peace Corps’ associate director of volunteer recruitment and selection.  Applications among older Americans, many of whom have lost jobs in last year’s economic downturn, are on the rise.

2young2retire facilitator and Peace Corps volunteer, Patrice Koerper, who recently returned from an assignment in Macedonia, describes it as the “most amazing, rewarding adventure of my life,”  and the Peace Corps itself as the best organization she has ever been associated with.  A seasoned public relations professional with a “great job,” Patrice was looking for a change of direction.  She had three personal goals for her next endeavor:  first, she wanted “to see the faces of the people I was helping”; second, she wanted to get to know more people; and third, she wanted to live in Eastern Europe from where her family immigrated generations ago.  Service with the Peace Corps in Macedonia met all three.

In 2006, while exploring new possibilities for work and life, she took the training to become a certified 2young2retire facilitator.  She also found herself drawn to the Peace Corps and decided to apply.  After a six-month application process which she found both “laborious and scary,” she felt the Peace Corps knew more about her than anyone.  If you’re an older volunteer, you should expect that because there is so much more to know.

Based on an assessment of your skills and experience, the Peace Corps decides what kind of work you will take on.   Once you have accepted an assignment – you are offered up to three locations – you receive language and other training to prepare you for life in your host country.  The mission of the Peace Corps is captured in these three goals:

  1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
  2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
  3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

The Three Goals, plus the commitment to a 27-month duration of service, tend to screen out all but the most serious applicants.  Peace Corps volunteer are supplied with a round trip ticket, housing allowance and a stipend to cover food, transportation and incidentals.  For Patrice this came to $220 a month, or roughly equivalent to 250 Euros, an average salary in Macedonia.  The point is, volunteers must live like the locals.  She received full medical coverage during her service and affordable health insurance for up to 18 months following service.   Older volunteers who draw Social Security and/or other pension benefits, may accumulate significant savings while they are away from home.  All returning Peace Corps volunteers are awarded just over $6,000 toward a smooth transition to life back home, and Patrice notes, they are eligible for Response Corps, short-term, high-impact assignments that typically range from three months to a year, at the request of a country.

Eager to begin her new assignment, Patrice arrived in Macedonia and spent the first six months “doing nothing.  Patience is the Number One way to survive,” she notes.  Macedonia, which became independent from Yugoslavia in 1991, is in the process of reinventing itself and its economy.  She was assigned to work with a government agency and eventually found herself doing workshops on change.  At first, people tended to view volunteers with suspicion, perhaps because there has been no formal tradition of volunteering.  She grew comfortable with the experience of “living minute to minute.” The last seven months of her service in Macedonia proved to be the most fruitful and rewarding.   “I realized I was in the business of building hope and trust,” Patrice says.  She kept the motto of Macedonian native, Mother Theresa, in mind: “Do small things with great love.”

Here are links about the Peace Corps, including recent budgetary debate and how to go about applying:

Recruiting the 50+
Budget Debates, Future Prospects
From Job Loss to Peace Corps
About Peace Corps
Forum for Volunteers
How to Apply


Guy Kawasaki on Entrepreneurship

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In his final posting for Sun Microsystems, business guru Guy Kawasaki offers “a list of the five most important lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur.”

  1. Focus on cash flow. I understand the difference between cash flow and profitability, and I’m not recommending that you strive for a lack of profitability. But cash is what keeps the doors open and pays the bills. Paper profits on an accrual accounting basis is of no more than secondary or tertiary importance for a startup. As my mother used to say, “Sales fixes everything.”
  2. Make a little progress every day. I used to believe in the big-bang theory of marketing: a fantastic launch that created such inertia that you flew to “infinity and beyond.” No more. Now my theory is that you make a little bit of progress every day–whether that’s making your product slightly better, increasing your skill in one small way, or closing one more customer. The reason the press writes about “overnight successes” is that they seldom happen–not because that’s how all businesses work.
  3. Try stuff. I also used to believe that it’s better to be smart than lucky because if you’re smart you can out-think the competition. I don’t believe that anymore–this is not to say that you should strive for a high level of stupidity. My point is that luck is a big part of many successes, so (a) don’t get too bummed out when you see a bozo succeed; and (b) luck favors the people who try stuff, not simply think and analyze. As the Chinese say, “One must wait for a long time before a Peking duck flies into your mouth.”
  4. Ignore schmexperts. Schmexperts are the totally bad combination of schmucks who are experts–or experts who are schmucks. When you first launch a product or service, they’ll tell you it isn’t necessary, can’t really work, or faces too much competition. If you succeed, then they’ll say they knew you would succeed. In other words, they don’t know jack shiitake. If you believe, try it. If you don’t believe, listen to the schmexperts and stay on the porch.
  5. Never ask anyone to do something that you wouldn’t do. This goes for customers (“fill out these twenty-five fields of personal information to get an account for our website”) to employees (“fly coach to Mumbai, meet all day the day you arrive, and fly back that night”). If you follow this principle, you’ll almost always have a good customer service reputation and happy employees.

I hold these truths to be self-evident and hope that you can use them to kick butt and change the world.

Facebook: The New Rolodex?

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Once upon a time, a stuffed Rolodex was a sign of a well-connected, highly-motivated person, someone who did a lot of networking and gathering contacts on the hey-you-never-know premise. That was then. Today, we have other choices like LinkedIn which builds a professional network on the principle of six degrees of separation, that is, who you know, and who they know, ad infinitum. But it’s actually more, because there is huge incentive for members to build professional profiles, invite in associates and colleagues, get and give recommendations, and ask questions (starting a kind of forum). According to an article in Business Week (Business Tips for Late Facebook Arrivals) by venture capitalist, Richard Moran, we should stop thinking of Facebook as a place for young people to connect and share photos and hot new dance clubs, and embrace it as a very grownup tool to further our careers, businesses, and causes. Moran writes:

Your Rolodex is alive and following you. In order to close a deal recently, I was desperate to reach an executive. I called his office, sent him an e-mail, and even called his boss. Nothing happened for days. After all else failed, I checked him out on Facebook, friended him and he accepted my request although we had not met. I sent him a message, he responded, and the deal was considered. Facebook did in a matter of seconds what traditional telecommunications and e-mail couldn’t accomplish in days.

And then, of course, there is www.2young2retire.net, the aim of which is to help you meet other retirement-resistant grownups who are eager to educate themselves about the possibilities of life beyond their core career, and instinctively understand that community is what makes makes this important transition smoother, more rewarding, and fun.

Purpose-Driven Travel

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If you’ve been there, done that, perhaps you are ready for a different kind of travel experience, one where you quit being a tourist and actually contribute something to the people and places you are visiting. Some folks have found an outlet lecturing and teaching on cruise ships in exchange for the voyage, which could be a good way to get your feet wet, so to speak. But if you think cultural immersion is more your speed, consider these examples.

Susan and David Cooper, 60-something world travelers, recently spent a week in Spain, helping a motivated group of business people hone their conversational English skills with Pueblo Ingles. One week of accommodations and food (both rated excellent) in exchange for their services; they paid their own airfare. Barcelona or Madrid, anyone?

Global Volunteers is an organization that puts the skills of experienced professionals to use in the developing world in what it calls a volunteer vacation abroad. Goals are similar to those of the Peace Corps: an interchange of ideas and cultures that enable volunteers and their hosts to learn from one another, but for shorter stays. World travel enthusiasts Herbert and Phyllis Goldberg are active Global Volunteers. Their first assignment took them to Vietnam for three weeks, where they “taught conversational English, advised in the hospital and medical clinics (Herb is a former plastic surgeon, Phyllis, a marriage and family therapist), taught medical and psychological policy and the American way of life.”

Your English language skills could also get you a job abroad for a longer period of time. The Oxford Seminars TESOL/TESL Teacher Training Certification Course offers a 60-hour in-class course. Graduates receive an internationally-recognized certificate and six months of free job placement assistance through its teacher placement department.

Where in the world would you like to teach? asks World Teach, a non-profit, non-governmental organization founded by a group of Harvard students in 1986. World Teach “provides opportunities for individuals to make a meaningful contribution to international education by living and working as volunteer teachers in developing countries.”

Prune That Resume!

One of advantages of being an older worker (lots of experience), can also play havoc with a resume, especially in a field that typically skews to younger people.  The good news: recruiters tend to prefer older workers over younger for their stability (average length of stay for younger worker is 26 months).  Here are a few tips from an IT specialist on how to create a resume that brings out your best for the job you’re after in any field.  

  • Prune that resume down to the essentials!  If you’re 50 or better, it probably reads more like a book than a document designed to get you that interview.  You’re likely competing with younger folks, so let the points be crisp and compelling.      
  •  Focus on 3-4 core skills that are directly relevant to the job you’re seeking.  Think of your resume as a work in progress and be prepared to customize it quickly.  Obvious point: check grammar and proof for typos every time you change and reprint it.
  • Skip any certifications, expertise or accomplishments that ‘date’ you.  After you get a feel for the work at hand, you can always bring them up during the interview. 
  • Smartest tip we’ve seen anywhere: ask people in the field you’re interested in to critique your resume.  They’re much more likely to see the red flags that could mean your resume winds up in the trash.   
  • Be confident.  The workplace is changing in your favor.  According to AARP, by 2012 almost 20 percent of the U.S. work force will be 44 or over. Americans are predicted to work longer than ever before. There were 5.5 million people 65 and older in the labor force in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a number which is projected to reach 10.1 million by 2016.
Read more:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-manager/?p=515

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Careers/Tips-for-Older-IT-Job-Seekers/

 

Paradigm Shift?

You know something is changing in the culture when you start to see full page ads with words and images that deliver a new message. When I was contemplating a next career as a yoga instructor 10 years ago, it still seemed a rather esoteric, out there endeavor. Today, Yoga Journal is fat with advertising for retreats, schools, yoga products of every description. Moreover, images of toned people striking yoga poses or sitting in smiling meditation are commonplace in mainstream media.

With this in mind, I have to mention a full page ad that appeared in PLAY, a magazine section of last Sunday’s New York Times, that is emblematic of the zeitgeist as regards older people and the choice of meaningful second acts. The ad is for a new partnership between the Times and Monster.com, the career site. The headline copy is: FIND A JOB YOU’D DO FOR FREE…THEN LET THEM PAY YOU. “When you do what you love to do,” continues the body text, “it’s not really work at all. Now you can find the job you love, when you love to live. Your calling is calling — find it at nytimes.com/monster.” Good enough (and I love the idea of a job one loves), but the image should resonate with all of us 50 and beyond. It shows a mature male face, a hand holding a piece of chalk at a blackboard, the suggestion of a classroom. A teacher who loves his job?

As it happens, teaching is, like nursing and nurse-training, a profession where there are more jobs than people to fill them. These are also jobs where maturity and life experience give one an unusual advantage, and where we can exercise the ‘give back’ desire than grows stronger as we pass midlife and begin seeking our life’s work. Our calling, which we may have ignored to attend to the business of building a career and family, calls more loudly and clearly. How each of us answers can shape the rest of our lives. If enough of us in later life choose work that makes a positive impact on society, we can shift the paradigm*.

*Once used only in the scientific context, “paradigm shift” has found uses in other contexts, representing the notion of a major change in a certain thought-pattern — a radical change in personal beliefs, complex systems or organizations, replacing the former way of thinking or organizing with a radically different way of thinking or organizing (Source: Wikipedia)

Staying On the Job: Open Dialogue Needed

All research on older workers indicates that a significant number will choose to become free agents of one sort or another, some swelling the ranks of entrepreneurs 50 and older. But many who are retirement-eligible would prefer to remain in their jobs, renegotiating terms of employment with their current employers. Phased retirement and consulting gigs are among the many options most sought after, if employees could find a way to broach the subject without jeopardizing their positions.

As it happens, the more enlightened companies are willing to listen (see A Longer Goodbye). These employers know that talent shortages are not going away any time soon. This means they are much more amenable to new ideas on how to retain valuable employees of a certain age. Sounds like a win-win, provided there is frank and open dialogue on the subject.  And a new bill before Congress now will certainly add some fuel to the discussion.

Regardless of which side of this question you find yourself, check out the Retention Connection, a collection of thoughtful articles on the subject from The Herman Group, “futurists specializing in workforce and worplace trends.” While you’re at it, you could sign up for the free Herman Trend Alerts, which arrives in my emailbox every week. There’s invariably a tip I find useful.