<p>My sister is in a semi similar situation. She’s an accountant but was a SAHM for 18 years. She started temping recently and pretty quickly from one of her temp positions was offered a full-time job.</p>
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<p>Not to hijack your thread - but I, too, am 50+ and will be looking for a new job in a brand new field (teaching) in a few months. I am getting mixed messages on the whole resume thing - specifically, should I include the year in which I earned my degrees? Should I include the time span during which I wiorked at my previous employers?</p>
<p>Some people say include all dates; others (the majority?) seem to say to drop the dates if the degrees were earned over 20 years ago (for example).</p>
<p>So confusing!</p>
<p>Good luck, RVM. Seems to me that jobs in the finance field may be easier to find than teaching…</p>
<p>I think the temp suggestion is a good one. Companies like Robert Half will test your accounting knowledge before place you, so make sure you brush up accounting 101 before you go for an interview. You will be surprised how much you forgot the academics while working full time. I am embarrassed to admit I failed a temp job placement agency test before, so I know.</p>
<p>I did not want to get an accounting temp job after knowing how much they pay. So I took another route and became a computer consultant which I also have the skill and experience. I was hired as a temp in a large company and ended up working for them for 5 years as a temp… At the time of hiring, I was offered only one month contract to solve one small problem.</p>
<p>the prevailing recommendation is to NOT include dates of college and grad school graduation for the over 50 crowd. It’s also typically recommended by outplacement and HR folks to only include the last 10-15 yrs of employment, which can be tricky for some.</p>
<p>Yes, that’s where I am unsure. I graduated from college in '85 and include it on my resume to show that I am a collece graduate, field of study and so forth. And I have only had 6 employers between 1985 and the present, so I am listing all 6. This is where I need some guidance, I think. I’m unsure if I am getting no response due to my age, my resume or if employers are simply inundated. At the moment, I have had only one response to 14 jobs applied for. Of couse, it only takes one, but I had really wanted to explore possibilities in a few finance/banking/mortgage related fields. While I am hoping that this one company leads to an offer, I wish I had choices, rather than feeling like if they do make me an offer, I had better accept it.</p>
<p>yes, you need to put your college, major and degree, but you can simply leave off the date you graduated. For employment you do need to indicate dates, so maybe you can list the most recent employers. when was your last employment?</p>
<p>You don’t need to list your major unless it was technical. Almost 30 years out of school, it doesn’t matter if you majored in History or Poli Sci.</p>
<p>Hi - want to recommend the AARP website for anyone in this situation. They have a whole section for job search topics.</p>
<p>Their advice was to leave education info on resume, but omit the graduation year. They also agreed with the advice given here about focusing the resume on the past 10-15 years, so I will make those changes to my resume.</p>
<p>There was also an interesting article on interview mistakes made by older people, one of which was to ask numerous questions about the training that will be provided. People who are 50+ wanting a more structured training process. The article felt this was a red flag to employers, who envision a hire who can hit the ground running. Their recommendation was to ask a more general question about how new employees are assimilated into their workplace. I found this advice very helpful.</p>
<p>Lets face it, the hiring company will figure out your age however you wish to “hide” it. Your face will give it away. And there are hundreds of databases online they can search if they want to. </p>
<p>Whats important is how to demonstrate your “fit” to the job AND the company. You suppose to perform on day one, that is how you can defeat the competition. After 30 years of experiences, if you are still looking for training, you will be eliminated in no time.</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t look 50. It may not make a huge difference, but if I can pass for mid-40’s, I think that can only work in my favor.</p>
<p>Everyone needs some training when they start a new position, particularly on computer programs that might be similar to, but not identical, to those used previously.</p>
<p>glad you found AARP confirmed these resume recommendations…definitely important for us to follow</p>
<p>hiring company will of course recognize you are over 40, when they interview you, but better to not be eliminated from the interview process completely.</p>
<p>My point is not to discuss “training” in an interview, that will show your weakness or insecure. Rather, emphases on how you can perform in that job. Of course, they have to train you their computer system, that is given. But it is not to be discussed in an interview unless the hiring manager brought up first.</p>
<p>My cousin has been content with H&R Block and has worked her way up into teaching there. She has been with them for dozens if years. </p>
<p>I created my own job by starting a nonprofit 7 years ago. It was tough but gratifying. The pay depends on how well I’ve done at bringing in grants and other funds, but its a cause I really believe in and am proud of how far I’ve gotten it to date.</p>
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<p>I just turned 50 last year. I work as an independent consultant, and change clients every 6-24 months. Last fall when I was looking I had a much harder time than usual finding something… was even told by one interviewer on the phone that I didn’t have “enough energy” for the job. What? Obviously they have not met me in person, that is certainly not an issue for me!</p>
<p>So… I went back over my resume and took off the dates. Put in length of engagements in months (was also able to move things around so specific industries were listed together). Took off some I didn’t think were very relevant in today’s job market, and just to reduce the months if someone added it up. Took the years off my undergrad and MBA. Also got a new email address for the resume (gmail, had been using my AOL because some of my old clients know it and I want them to be able to find me… it could cost me $100,000 to miss contact from them…). Added a line at the top that said “Specific engagement experience - more detail available on request” – just to cover that I hadn’t included all of my experience in case it comes up. Sent the revised version out to all my contacts I had been talking to (just said “updated version of my resume and a new email address”). And posted the new one to my Monster and LinkedIn accounts. And… bam. The phone started to ring. Three weeks later I had two different offers to pick from.</p>
<p>I think you are fine into your 40s. 20 years of experience does not throw people off. For whatever reason, 25 or more does. By the way, I didn’t reduce my rates (that temptation was sure there, too… and probably would have been a next step if the “makeover” didn’t work. But it did.)</p>
<p>Back to LinkedIn, which you haven’t mentioned using. Someone who contacted me for a job just this week I had found out there told me that they were finding the quality of the applicants from LI were a lot higher than the other online search processes they were using. Even if you don’t find this job through it, it may lead to your next job… if you haven’t set it up, do that and keep connecting with people you meet. It will make your next job search a lot easier!</p>
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<p>This is fantastic and had never occurred to me. I’m going to change mine to years (ie, 2 years) rather than put down that it was in the 1990s…looks so much better.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great advice. I started a LinkedIn profile, but need to spend more time on that. I am also going to tweak resume a bit to make it less obvious that I am 50.</p>
<p>I aso wanted to mention to you that an AOL email address is kind of a dead giveaway that you are an older person. Younger people would typically have gmail or another Internet provider. I don’t think you will find anyone under 40 with an AOL email.</p>
<p>Agree that taking dates off and grouping by category WITH the duration of experience you have is a great idea. I have done this when I switched from my law field to the public health stuff I’ve switched to now. It has helped me rethink what I’m doing and the skills I have, which is what employers and funders are interested in more than our chronological age. They have have skills they didn’t even realize they were missing by hiring us!</p>
<p>^ Right I think that was intparent’s point - no one uses AOL anymore. Also along those lines, the AARP info was interesting, but on the “quiz” (super easy), they said the correct answer for how to follow up is both email and a written thank-you note. I disagree - nothing suggests ‘relic of the past’ more than a personal letter arriving in the mail, let alone hand written!</p>
<p>gmail seems to be the email account of many of the young people I know these days and it’s free! I have reluctantly added it to the email accounts I have and check regularly (with my yahoo.com account.</p>
<p>Interesting comment on the thank you note follow-up. I am sticking to email for those. Never considered that a mailed note would be viewed as old-fashioned!</p>