If you’re over 45, you know  that we’re a hypocritical generation. We complain about how our lazy kids lack, clueless, and lost. We give the ammo for our own execution by not renewing our thinking and refreshing our approach to gaining employment. We paint a bull's eye on our foreheads that say “We’re old, we don’t fit in”. It’s a shame.

We still think we can work at one company until we retire.

We still believe that we can just fill out 50 applications online (if we have accounts on-line) and get 10 call backs for interviews.

Our kids think we’re lame. It’s true. It’s true.

We’re out of touch. Admit it. We are going to the Public Library now to take basic Microsoft Word. We ask our children how to navigate certain sites. No wonder we rarely receive calls for interviews.

We know how to dress for the party, but we don’t know the music, and we don’t know the latest dances. We experience EPIC FAIL at the interviews.

Age discrimination is not on the radar, nor is it easily detectable. Be shrewd and protective of our on marketing devices. We are the best hire to any one employer. We have experience, we have self-discipline, but we don’t have strategy because we think that we can approach job hunting like it’s 1985.

Our generation has a common thread of issues and bad ideas in creating and leveraging job opportunities:

1. WE include jobs from 1985 on our resumes. There are other ways to get around this self barricaded faux pas, but for the sake of space, don’t list it unless it covers 20 years of significant experience.
2. Video resume. Although it’s a creative and aggressive strategy, this will set off all types of potential discrimination including age. It’s not a bad idea, but video resumes complicate things.
3. Lack of relevant training, reading, and learning. A lack of adaptability will make it easier to overlook you. These are the days of the perpetual learner, using many sources online, offline, and just talking to other people and comparing notes, and sharing what works with each other.
4. Uncomfortable in using E-mail, the internet, or any computer related communication. Enough said.
5. No understanding who you are professionally and lacking a professional brand. Ok, you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask a friend about your reputation, and that’s your answer.

Now that we’ve had a laugh, let’s look at how you can make over the aged perception of you. If you are 45 and older, and job searching, four things you can change by Monday:

1) Talk with much more energy and enthusiasm. Express the positive things about  how you feel about life. It’s tough to unemployed, but potential employers, contacts, old co-workers, friends and family will be anxious to someone who is upbeat and smiling. 

2) Let your conversations be seasoned with solutions. Do people think of you for solutions or to verify their fears? Who do you attract, solvers or complainers? When you network and interview, the more solutions you find researched issues than less it seems that you are spewing of problems that no one can resolve.

3) Be a perpetual learner from blogs, online articles, free webinars, Twitter, and Facebook (you said you can keep up in fast-paced environments). You can subscribe to them just to stay relevant and for you to mention them makes you hip and in the know. These days what’s on the web is as credible than what you read in the paper, as it is faulty as what you read.

4) Prepare for purpose by consulting, teaching, or selling something while waiting for the full-time gig. Experienced means you’ve been through it all. If you don’t share what you’ve learned from life and work, then you are not contributing to the conversation.

Thoughts?

Other related posts:

46 Ways to Increase your Value While Unemployment and Temping: Be Everything They Miss at Home

2010: The Year of the Temporary Worker, the Temporary Job, and the New Mindset