Jobs Over 50
How To Get
The Ideal Job
The
Only Guide You Will Ever Need
To Find THE BEST Job For YOU
Copyright© 2012. Working People Over 50
Smashwords Edition
For more info, please visit www.workingpeopleover50.com
Table of Contents:
I Don't Want To Work That Hard!
Quiz: Should I Be A Boss Or An Employee
Making A Living or Feathering My Nest Egg?
Getting Your Ideal Job: Writing An Outstanding Resume
Tips for an Outstanding Resume
The Whole Wide World: Navigating Online Opportunities
7 Steps to a Successful Start-Up
I think my friend Chris said it best. We had both turned 50 and needed to transition to new jobs at the same time. My Health and Beauty business was taking up too much time and energy, keeping me from having the time to enjoy my family and friends; Chris worked for a large corporation and was down-sized out of a job after being a loyal (and very effective) employee for over 20 years.
I sold the business and was casting about for a new direction, and Chris was trying to decide if he wanted to look for the same type of job that he had lost, or find something else entirely.
Needless to say, we had plenty of time on our hands, and since we enjoyed each other's company and respected each other's opinions, we had more than a few brainstorming sessions. One afternoon we were kicking around options and I mentioned a few possibilities to Chris that seemed feasible. He didn't reject my suggestions out-of-hand, but his answer surprised me.
His response... "I don't want to work that hard!" If you knew Chris, who works harder than anyone I know, no matter what he's doing, you would have been surprised too.
But when he continued, I totally got it. He said he had no problem with working hard - he didn't know how to work any other way, but he didn't want to put in as much time and energy as it would take to start at the ground floor and build a career that had a shelf-life of 15 years, tops. He didn't want to constantly be on guard against managers who worried that he had more experience than they did, was too old to learn how to do things "their way", or resented him as an outsider that took a job away from a co-worker or friend.
I said "Well... it looks like you won't be working for any more large corporations", and he said, "Finally... we've started to narrow it down!"
Our talk that day was one of the most productive brainstorming sessions we had during that time. We knew Chris was an ideal employee - he just needed to find the ideal employer. And he did! One of his acquaintances had a thriving online business that needed a hard working, disciplined, and inventive person to help him take his business in new directions, and Chris is having the time of his life doing it. Who knew...
It would be wonderful if we were all able to resolve our employment dilemmas as successfully as Chris did, but unfortunately, that doesn't happen very often. It's hard enough in ideal circumstances to make the transition from one job to another, and we don't live in an ideal universe. The economy is unstable, to say the least, we don't know if Social Security will come through for us (or even still be in existence) when we retire, and we keep hearing that we're the part of the workforce that is least likely to get hired. CBS News even has a video titled Baby Boomers: America's New Unemployables. That's not exactly reassuring!
But Baby Boomers have a Secret Weapon that is more powerful than all of the gloom and doom and negative press. WE KNOW HOW TO USE OUR BRAINS! We are the largest and most successful generation in history, and we've had over 30 years experience in "making things happen". Collectively, we've taken charge of the situations we've been faced with, looked head-on at the problems in front of us, and come up with a solution. How powerful is that!
So here we are again, looking at our situation, and trying to figure out "Where do I go from here?"
We may not have the answer to that question yet, but, rest assured, we will get it!
Luckily, there are road maps to help us get where we want to be. The steps are so simple that a child could follow them. As a matter of fact, they are the basic tenets of problem solving in child psychology. A good friend of mine, who is a child psychologist, calls them "your problem solving tools". She advises her young patients to put them in their "problem solving kit", and make sure they always carry it with them.
The first tool is RECOGNITION. You must recognize that you have a problem before you can solve it.