Having had my teenage years in the 1970’s, I can confidently say that I have more of my working life behind me rather than in front of me.
But those of you who are in my ‘demographic’ have been through recessions before. Something our less experienced colleagues have not worked through. In these very challenging times, if you find yourself in the job market after an extended period of time in ongoing employment, the landscape has changed, even from as recently as 5 to 10 years ago.
Employers need to be able to find you
We’re all familiar with finding a vacancy on an online job board, sending in your resume and waiting for a response. Not anymore...
No doubt you have your mobile phone in your hand most of the time. You need to be set up to be able to apply for jobs on your phone and to receive job alerts from various APP’s you’ve downloaded. Video interviews, whilst gaining in popularity prior to Covid 19, have now taken the place of face to face interviews (for the time being at least). Do you have access to the required technology?
Videos personalise you, rather than just make you seem to be a few lines on a Word document. Use them to your advantage – you have the experience, the maturity and the longevity to be an asset to future employers. You have so much assumed knowledge to be able to get up and running in a short space of time.
Networks
The biggest advantage all of us with considerable work experience have, is our networks. That’s just a fancy name for our contacts, colleagues we have met and worked with over the years. You might surprise yourself when you start to count up how many there actually are. Those job seekers with a lot less work experience than you, will not be able to match the number of people with whom you can connect.
With great online tools such as Linked In, or even Facebook, you can find pretty much anyone. So make sure you have updated your Linked In profile, join discussion groups, post or share information relating to your work experience and work interests, obtain endorsements and update your work status. There is a distinct and real advantage having the amount of experience and contacts you have amassed over the course of your working life. Exploit it and take advantage of what you have built up over the years.
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