I am in my 50s. Yes, age bias exists and, yes, it is illegal. You won’t always be able to avoid it. But age bias is sometimes not really about your actual age, it is about certain soft skills and attitudes that employers desire but older employees are less likely to value. And if you learn to address those issues, you can make concerns about age go away.
Your long term career goals are much more likely to be achieved if you create group of advisors you respect that you can check in with periodically. These are not “friends” who will agree without question with your rationale about why your career is at the stage it is. These are business people you hold great respect for who will challenge and play devil’s advocate with every one of your ideas. The payback of putting yourself under the microscope of other business people can be tremendous. (more…)
I see too many resumes that show the minimum skills required by a job ad but don’t show how well the job applicant performed the tasks or why this candidate is a better risk to interview and hire than other applicants with the same skills. If you are guilty of this, you have qualified your resume to be “in the pile” of qualified applicants but have done nothing to make your resume float to the “top of the pile.” You have less chance of winning an interview. (more…)