58 and Still Unemployed: Building a Plan

by Doug Berube

             I’ve now been unemployed for eight months; my email in-box is filled with daily job alerts, LinkedIn group notifications, headhunter inquiries, and the occasional job scam with no leads in sight.  I’m networking on LinkedIn, even read the book “The Start-Up of You” by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, and I will continue to network because it is a learning experience. Currently, I have submitted over 90 resumes and still counting. I have gone to job fairs, interviewed with a few headhunters, even had one in person interview (nothing), taken on-line resume building with interview skill training; I’m a while trained job hunter.

            I have been researching the reality of the 50 to 61 age group current history of reentering the job market. Reuters reported an Urban Institute report that employees over the age of 55 are less likely to lose their job during this economy, but if they do, they are 33 percent less likely to find new work than their counterpart's age 25 to 34. The AARP reports that the 55 plus age group is the only one showing an increase of the unemployed; all the other age groups have been decreasing. This age group, as reported by the AARP is not being re-employed because of age discrimination. The reports are not encouraging as a 58-year-old  human trying to get back into the workforce. My research also uncovered that there are some older American finding jobs, and now I know that I’m directed to find out about their success.

            Mark Miller, January 14, 2011, report in Reuters three key employment recommendations; “Keep skills current, Expand horizons, and Don’t over –play deep experience.” I’ve already known about these tips, and I’m back in school to complete my bachelor degree in business management and going to school is part of my plan to expand my horizons. School is the environment I need to be exposed to new ideas. The curriculum is constructed to cultivate the ideas and work them out to fruition. Caution is always good advice about over-playing experience because arrogance is offensive.

            Discovering the actual situation about the current economic conditions about re-employment is only part of my awareness. I need to become aware of my potential and how to use it to my advantage. I’m going to do a SWOT analysis to determine my strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats. I’ll take that analysis and construct a few mind maps to plot out several paths and see where they take me. One of the maps will be plotted to determine some entrepreneurial possibilities. Becoming an entrepreneur just might be the alternative to the age challenge of the current job market.