Finding work in 50's

[Draconis]

My friend has been a carer for the last few and hasn't worked. She previously held good roles in finance, earning around £50k
She's now in a position to go back to work but doesn't want high powered or stressful jobs and would be happy to do some admin work.
No luck though. Never even gets called for interview. Is ageism really rife or is it just bad luck?

I work for a charity which helps older people and they are very receptive to taking on older people, most of my colleagues are late fifties/ early sixties. We really struggle to recruit people with the right skills though. Maybe she should look at charities or maybe places like CAB, start off doing a bit of volunteering work in admin and then when paid jobs do come up ( which they often do ), she would be in a prime position to apply.

Is ageism really rife or is it just bad luck?
Ageism is rife. It's brutal and confidence-sapping - no wonder productivity is so poor in this country when we have so many under-employed women over 40. You'd think the Government would do something about it given that they want us to work until we drop. Civil Service can be less hung up on age, reasonably amenable to flexible/part-time work, with lower-grade admin roles where you don't take your work home with you - the money is awful but the leave and pension are OK.

I have a friend who is late fifties. She has an accounts background and is always changing jobs so it isn't a problem everywhere. She's very confident though.

Could it be her cv needs attention? Maybe she could consult a job coach?

Could she do a virtual PA job instead?

She'd love a virtual PA job and has applied but doesn't get any callbacks.
It's sad as she's so keen to work, clued up and energetic. She hasn't been long out of the job scene either. Around 4 yrs.
I'll tell her to try some civil service roles. I thought of education and universities as well. They might be better?

Try some of the insurance companies - crying out for staff and their customer service roles are far from basic jobs, but gets the brain working and options to move to higher paid roles -

Apart from that - why is she putting her age/dates on her CV?

Another vote for trying some of the big insurance companies. I work for one myself and started as a newbie at the age of 48. We are always looking for staff and our recent intake of new recruits included people in their sixties.

Get her to register with Brook Street. They supply temps to the MOJ.

How do you hide your age on a CV?

Just giving qualifications (O levels), when you went to school / Uni. listing jobs you've had and when from - just a few of those can give clues.

Lots of finance companies and banks have returner programmes

womenreturners.com/

I went back into the workforce at 53 after caring responsibilities.

University admin jobs are very competitive, almost as competitive as school admin jobs. Civil service or NHS are long haul for recruitment, of which CS is much more competitive.

So she's never been a PA or had an admin job, and now struggles to get those jobs. This is not so surprising. Council or NHS admin at low band entry are good to try. My nearest big hospital (15 miles away) is often advertising for part time ward clerks, good way to get foot in door.

I think once you get to 2 years out of formal workplace you have to view yourself like a school leaver, in terms of what you aspire to get for a job. Start small (lower pay, maybe PT) and keep looking for best opportunities.

I've only gone back into the workplace full time in my mid 50's after years of p/t. I didn't have a particularly focused skill set and was really worried that I had nothing to offer anyone but I was very pleasantly surprised!

I work in fundraising for a lovely charity and there's quite a wide age range, many of us in middle age. I actually find that my age is a positive because I work with older volunteers and my life experience really helps me.

I would recommend looking at the charity sector - I find them very supportive employers.

Similar to me, at 50 my work closed, I was done with life in the fast lane in finance.

I set up a little business doing accounts for small businesses and worked 3 days a week. Although if was to do the same today, I would not go self employed the money laundering fees and requirements got ridiculous.

I often would be the only finance person going into these businesses, I did VAT, CIS tax etc, set them up on Sage or similar.

Finance is a broad term and maybe your friend doesn't have the experience for this. My fast lane job had been export, letters of credit, currency hedging and before the euro, I had twenty one different currencies I dealt in. I had, had experience in the skills I used at the small businesses prior to this.

Perhaps ringing an accountancy practice and asking if they had anything to suit her skills?

In her position I'd tailor my CV so it doesn't give away my age. No dates on education, only give the last 15-20 years job experience etc. The finer details can be elaborated in an interview if needed, she just needs to get in the door so I think a bit of CV fluffing is justified.

I'm in my 50s and have had several job offers in this time. Perhaps she needs to get a careers councillor and modernize her CV, dress general appearance. There should be nothing to giver her age away so that isn't the reason for getting no calls.

How do they know her age?

Maybe she doesn't have the right admin experience?There's always a lot of competition for admin posts. I don't know, I'm sure ageism does exist but I haven't seen it where I work (a university). We've recently recruited 2 admin people for our team. One is early 50s and is late 50s. They were up against lots of younger women but these two were by far the best candidates. We appreciated their experience and competence. They've been in the team for a month and are brilliant!

I work for a local authority. Lots of women in their 50s around. A position was recently offered to a man in his 70s but he turned it down.

If she has a lot of finance experience then bookkeeping is an obvious choice.

100% do not put your date of birth on any CV

My DP was made redundant at 56 and applied for many jobs. I couldn't believe how many companies didn't even acknowledge his applications.
He had a few interviews and only a couple responded, to politely turn him down.
He'd worked all his life, never been unemployed before. Always arrived early for work and hardly had any sick days. His confidence was shattered. He felt so worthless and ended up in a very depressive state.

Pm

There's definitely ageism out there but it's unrealistic of your friend to have held a well paying role in finance and then decide she is happy to do admin work and expect to get interviews for that role. There have been a lot of threads like this recently where people will have been in a high flying job then decide they "just" want to get a job in a supermarket or an admin role and are surprised when it doesn't happen.

There are numerous candidates out there with the correct and relevant skill set for each vacancy so it's very unlikely that they will interview someone who looks over qualified, inexperienced and possibly using the job as a stop gap. I don't think age comes into it in that respect.

Could she possibly do some voluntary work in the area she wants to work in, to get some current experience on her CV?

Perhaps future employers just think she is looking for a stop-gap (after high powered finance role)? Although maybe she explains this change of direction, so it is more ageism in fact.

I have my last 10 years work history and let that speak for itself. My O levels taken in 1970 are irrelevant, what I've been doing lately is what matters.