One Mistake Older Job Hunters Make | JobSearchTV.com
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
I’ve seen people make this mistake for years and there is no reason for doing so.
[00:00] Intro
[00:18] The mistake
[00:52] The solution for older job hunters
[02:16] Outro
Over 50 and Job Hunting? A Friendly Reminder
Hi. I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. And people hire me for no BS career advice. Let me talk to those of you who are older workers about mistakes that I see you make.
And the big one is you don’t get yourself active as you get older professionally. Now I’m not talking about working out. I’m talking about setting yourself up with freelance work.
So you’ve lost your job, you’re now trying to find something, and you’re sitting around waiting for an email, a text, or a phone call, like a date on Wednesday
night wondering if he or she is going to get a call about going out that weekend. No, you have to be active.
Now. I’m a believer in freelance or gig work in order to buy yourself time to sustain yourself in a longer job search if things take longer than you anticipate. You can also immediately sign up for courses that deal with your skills deficiencies, I should say, because you know, you have them. There are some deficits in your background, that you know, you should rectify. And you can do that on platforms like LinkedIn where they’ve got free coursework available. You can also go to YouTube and take courses there.
The long and the short of it is one of the things you need to do is use your time well, and not sit around doing nothing, watching TV on one of the apps that you have. Again, focus on your career, because one of the biases that we believe that employers have is, as an older worker, your mind isn’t quite as, shall we say, good as it once was. And thus, one of the ways to keep it going is to do stuff, do stuff to keep yourself going professionally, and thus be able to sell your activity as an asset now, as opposed to ‘Hi! It was a great series on Netflix I’ve been watching for the last two weeks.’ Oh, because that’s not going to help you at all.
So hope you found this helpful. I’m Jeff Altman. Visit my website, TheBigGameHunter.us. Go to the blog there; go exploring. There’s a lot there that will help you. In addition, at the site, you can schedule time for a paid coaching session with me or evaluate me for coaching by scheduling a free discovery call.
In addition, I’ve got information about my courses, books and guides. Again, a lot there that will help you. Also connect with me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/TheBigGameHunter. My network tends to be a lot larger than most people’s. Have a terrific day and most importantly, be great!
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. He is hired to provide No BS Career Advice globally. That can involve job search, hiring staff, management, leadership, career transition and advice about resolving workplace issues. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2500 episodes.
I do a livestream on LinkedIn, and YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) Tuesdays and Fridays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me via messaging on LinkedIn or in chat during the approximately 30-minute show.
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Excellent.
Thank you for being so kind as to compliment the video.
I came to the same conclusion about finding some sort of temp or gig work while doing a job search for a job in my area of expertise. So that’s good advice.
In the past I hadn’t done much about learning new skills, but if I have to go through another period of unemployment, I plan to do that.
Finally, I think that I have to recognize that it’s entirely possible that I would never be able to find another job in my area of expertise given the biases against older workers (they’re too expensive, they’re not as sharp as they once were, they don’t have enough energy, etc…). In that case, it’s time for a career change or to start my own business.
And if you can find a job, great! But the fact is, you need to broaden your choices and think of yourself as self-employed. What would you do if you lost your job in 3 months? How would you prepare yourself to do interesting work AND have the most options that suit you? #begreat