How to recover from job loss when you're over 50

By Neil Patrick

Almost everything the baby boomers learned about how to get a job when we were younger is now redundant.

There’s a secret army of people who have fallen off the radar for government help with unemployment. It’s the over 50’s. If you are a specialist skilled worker over 50, the support available is really scant.

For older workers who lose their jobs, the statistics are truly horrific. Though the unemployment rate for people over 55 is just 5.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to the overall rate of 7.3%, when older workers lose their jobs they are out of work for a long time, according to the AARP Public Policy Institute.

In August 2013, 47% of job seekers over 55 had been looking for 27 weeks or more. According to the Institute, on average, unemployed people over 55 have been jobless for nearly a year: 50 weeks, versus 34 weeks for those under 55.

Until now, Western governments have never had to address the problem of highly educated professional people being unemployed. In the past it was always semi-skilled and unskilled workers who would find themselves without work, if an employer or industry sector went through hard times.

And so government support agencies were set up to provide help for workers of this type. They developed simple programmes to support people like this. Help with writing their resumes. Advice on how to seek out potential employers. Help with interview tips.

These sorts of programmes were reasonably effective too because unskilled and semi-skilled labour is highly transferable – for example if you are a truck driver, you can work for a mining company, or a grocery delivery business or a healthcare provider.

So the unemployed of previous recessions were manageable by and large.

Fast forward to today. The economic crisis hasn’t just affected semi-skilled and unskilled workers, it has hit hard into the skilled professional classes too. This is a whole different problem. And because compared to the young unemployed, the 'grey' unemployed are less numerous and less likely to cause trouble, they remain a low priority for government help.

Let’s say you used to be a mortgage credit risk analyst. You probably had more job opportunities between the late 1990’s and the 2008 crash than you’d ever have thought possible. Mortgage lending was through the roof as banks and borrowers got drunk on the crazy credit boom merry-go-round. And the job market reflected this situation.

Then we had the financial collapse of 2008. Almost overnight, the lending stopped. And even now, more than five years later, banks are still lending nowhere near the amounts they were before the crash. No-one wants to hire a credit risk analyst.

An old colleague of mine was a seriously clever mathematical guy, who had spent 20 years of his career becoming an expert in the development of credit risk scorecards. In 2008, he lost his job with many others in the lending industry. And he’s been unemployed ever since.

Government help is virtually non-existent for the highly skilled professional who’s become unemployed, especially if they are over 50.

But it doesn’t have to be like this. You’re smart and you have a good mind. So use it!

Yes the job that you used to have may be gone forever. Your industry may be in meltdown. You may feel that you’ll never get back the career you once had.

These things may all be true. But it’s not the end, if you take on board some simple alternative truths.

The first fact to take on board is that almost everything we learned about how to get a job when we were younger is now redundant. We have to completely recalibrate how we think about our jobs and our futures.

And you can do it. Here’s the good news:

1. Do not define yourself by what you used to do

Instead think of all the skills and competencies you acquired in your decades of work. Think broadly about these. You might for example be a really great at organisation, leading teams, researching, writing reports, complicated mathematical evaluations. Forget the application of these skills and isolate them as part of your personal asset value.

Being really clear about this personal asset value is the foundation of your next career step.

2. Create your strategy before you start the search

Do not rush into sending your resume off and asking people if they know about a job opening. Instead, in the weeks and first few months after losing your job, you should start the re-evaluation process. Think of it as an opportunity rather than a problem. You suddenly have the chance to become who you always wanted to be, instead of the person your old job defined you as.

By all means have discussions within your network about what they are doing, but remember you are looking for a problem you can help solve, not necessarily a job someone wants to fill.

3. Get focussed and forensic in your search

Don’t hunker down behind your computer. Do not spend hours hunting jobs boards for possible job vacancies. Do not mass mail or email your resume to every opening you think looks like a possibility. You only need one job. Instead of the splatter gun approach, sit down do your homework and focus on your targets like a sniper.

If you combine this forensic approach with extensive networking and intelligence gathering, you’ll uncover pathways into what is called the hidden jobs market. These are the jobs that are never advertised. And some estimates suggest that this is now as high as 80% of all skilled hirings.

4. Tap into the real intel

Get out and network with all your old contacts. Read the local business press to see what problems businesses are having that you might be able to help them solve. This is where you’ll discover real opportunities.

5. Get your networking amplifiers working for you

This where to invest your time online. Sharpen up your LinkedIn profile. Increase your connections – not because they will necessarily have a job for you, but because as LinkedIn sees you are more active on the site, it will improve your search ranking. So when a recruiter does a search for your skill set in your location, you’ll be higher on the returns and they’ll find you.

6. Use social media to help

As I’ve written about here, and in many other posts on this blog, there are a ton of ways you can use social media to help you with your job search. Again the secret is to be smart and to have a strategy.

Having a blog is really powerful too. And if you do this, you’ll destroy at a single stroke the idea that many employers have that older workers are just not up to speed with today’s technologies. See my post about this here


And finally remember this. The economy isn't going to improve dramatically anytime soon. There’s not going to be a sudden surge of new jobs coming over the horizon. The number of people going after each job is only going to increase. And we cannot rely on the government to help us.

The way you will win isn't by getting lucky. It’s because you will make sure you are a better hunter and a perceived as a better candidate than the competition. Fortunately that’s not too hard, if you hunt smarter not harder.

How recruiters decide if your resume gets onto the 'yes' pile

By Liz Hardman

What happens when more than 300 people apply for one junior position at a company? And how do recruiters select a shortlist?

I recently had to recruit for my organisation - here I explain how I shortlisted candidates - more specifically the process I used to remove applications from the shortlist.

We recently placed an advertisement for a junior position at Northstar. We expected to get a few applicants but we didn't anticipate receiving quite the number we did - more than 300.

More startling than the sheer volume, however, was how few of the candidates actually made the cut; only 10% were shortlisted. So, what was wrong with the other 90%? And how can you make sure employers put your application through?

If an advert asks for a cover letter with your application, include one

60% of the applications we received did not include a covering letter, even though we asked for one.

Use this letter to sell yourself and explain why you want the role, why you're suited to it and, most importantly, what you can bring to the company. Don't go into how working for the company can help you achieve your goals and increase your skillset: companies aren't in business solely for the purpose of staff development. At this initial stage, show them you've got something they want.

Specific experience may be the key thing they are after, but if you don't have all the desired experience requested, don't despair - think laterally. Maybe you have transferable skills from a previous job, hobbies or interests which have helped you to develop skills the employer is after? For instance, you might not have developed leadership skills in a part-time job, but volunteering with a local Brownie or Scout pack might have taught you the same thing. The person we actually employed for this role had minimal desired skills. But they had other skills, which were of major benefit to us, as well as having the right enthusiasm and work ethos, which made them a great fit.

Don't directly copy cover email templates

If you really want a role, then write something specific to the role you're applying for. It's really obvious when candidates are applying for everything and anything. The text on your email or cover letter should demonstrate that you have specific skills and experience for this role/company which are worth the recipient opening the attachments. A generic email that reads, "Please find attached my CV and cover letter for you to see if my skills are a match for your company/position advertised" will not prompt the reader to continue. Tailoring your application takes more time, but will increase the possibility of you being called in for an interview. But keep it concise though - don't go overboard with the email text.

Use the correct salutation and check your spelling and grammar

If this isn't right, many recruiters will switch off immediately: it screams of a lack of English skills and attention to detail.

Don't start emails with "Hi", "Hello", "Dear All", or similar. You're not sending it to your friends. Instead, if the job advert gives a contact name, address it to them. If not, use the fail-safe "Dear Sir/Madam".

In our case, the job advert only gave my surname, so I knew that any applicants who wrote "Dear Liz" had taken the time to look for my name on our website - and this really showed initiative.

One of the requisite skills we said that applicants needed to possess was good spelling and grammar, but a number of applications did not meet this requirement. All email systems have spell checkers, so use them. Then read through what you have written again to check for typos, missing words and other errors. Finally, you could ask someone else to give you their opinion to check it's clear and makes sense.

Demonstrate you are interested in the organisation

As well as looking at the employers' website, take your research a bit further. Check whether they have they been in the news, or what their company focus is at the moment. Have a read of their blog (if they have one) to get to know what some of the employees are doing and so you have some great conversational collateral. Demonstrate that you are aware of how the role you are applying for fits into the organisation and in a wider context - what's new in the industry that the company is operating in?

Make your application stand out

Whether it's in the way you format your CV, the tone you use or the inclusion of a piece of work which is relevant to your application, do something to distinguish yourself. If your CV is a run-of-the-mill word document, that is how you'll be perceived. For example, the applications that stood out to us were those that looked as though they had been created by a graphic designer - they used subtle shading, changes in font sizing and orientation, and a modern font. They hadn't included anything garish, but it showed skill at using software by someone with an eye for how to format a document for maximum impact, both of which are really important in our industry.

If you choose to get someone else to do design your CV, however, say that you did this because you are still developing your skills in that area and do make sure you write the text yourself. When we interviewed candidates who had submitted one of the CVs that stood out the most for us in terms of design and content, it became immediately clear that the person sitting in front of us was not the same person that had written their CV and application letter. The result was a very short interview and no invite for a second interview.

Liz Hardman is a research director at Northstar Research Partners.

This post originally appeared here:

http://careers.theguardian.com/careers-blog/making-the-cut-recruiters-insight-yes-pile

Exodus on Wall Street

By Neil Patrick

Whilst some would have us believe it, not everyone working in the financial sector is a villain. To condemn a whole group for the misdemeanors of a few is naive and simplistic. The people who work in the financial centers around the world are a very diverse group. They include lawyers, analysts, compliance managers, IT specialists, HR and training people, accountants.

They compete to get and keep their jobs just like everyone else. They face demanding challenges at work just like everyone else. In fact the challenges they face are much more stressful than many. When large sums of money are directly involved, it’s a certainty that you will be under a lot of pressure to perform. Consequently, a good number of them are actually completely burned out by the time they are in their mid-thirties.

And much of the money that they earn is spent in businesses where they live, like food, services, retail, residential and cars. The money earned in financial businesses plays a big part in providing work for others - and is a big contribution to the city’s tax revenues.

Today, like many others, these people are seeing their jobs and prospects significantly downscaled. The savage cuts in headcounts in the wake of the 2008 collapse have left financial centers with their expensive offices much emptier than they were six years ago. And the remaining staff with a lot more work to do.

JSquish

Take Wall Street for example. The Big Apple’s fabled financial district is steadily becoming more of a tourist hub than a financial hub. New York’s share of jobs in the securities industry dipped below 20 percent earlier this year to an all-time low, according to government statistics.

Moreover, jobs lost after the financial crisis are being replaced in the city at less than half the rate of the rest of the country. Two decades ago, New York was home to 30% of all such jobs.

The securities industry has recovered just 54% of the jobs lost nationwide after the 2008 financial crisis, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But Wall Street has recouped only 23%. The workforce has been hollowed out - 167,000 employed at securities firms, down from 191,000 in 2008.

“The numbers say there are a lot of Wall Street jobs that don’t need to be in New York,” Barbara Byrne Denham, an economist who tracks the local business scene, told Crain’s New York Business. “That has all sorts of implications for the city’s tax revenues.”

Facing regulatory changes and with the advent of new trading technologies, the banks that long ago transferred lower-level personnel out of New York have started moving up the corporate ladder to put higher-paid people - such as investment bankers, analysts and financial advisers - in places like Tampa, Jacksonville and Salt Lake City.

So no-one is immune to the fallout from the collapse including the people who were closest to it. Perhaps it’s not altogether unlike what the military call ‘friendly fire’?



Some parts of this post were taken from an original article here:

http://nypost.com/2013/12/08/job-stream-from-wall-street-turning-into-a-florida-flood/