How to change career age 53?

[Hmmmmminteresting]

My DM left a job of 19 years last year due to her new boss being an awful human being and making hers and everyone else's life a misery.
Everyone told her she could easily get another job. Shes a very lovely, well spoken and well dressed 53 year old with 30 years of admin and secretarial experience. However shes spent the last year in and out of part time tempting positions. She always does well there but nobody can offer her anything permanent. She applied for everything but it's like her age holds her back, despite her not being "old".
Shes so disheartened and is losing confidence fast. She is open minded to a new career altogether however it would need to be something that she could train for quickly, or that doesn't take much training. She wants to work for the next 15 or so years, but obviously nothing massively strenuous. Please help with any suggestions.
Thanks!

Someone mentioned teaching assistant jobs. They don’t pay a lot more than minimum wage and are really hard to get as lots of school mums apply for them.

Fantastic advice from @growlingbear regarding taking your age off your CV etc

I know this is going off at a complete tangent, but a friend of mine became a published novelist in her late 50s!

Some people think it's a good idea to take your age off your CV. But employers aren't daft.

Once they see your Employment History, and see your first job was 1982, it won't take a genius to work out that you're in your 50s.

And even if you only list the last 15-20 years of your employment (or if you were a SAHM til you were 30, and didn't start paid employment til 20 years back,) they will know you are in your 50s, as soon as you turn up for your interview. Soooo, you may get an interview, but you won't necessarily get the job.

Personally if I was the OP's mother, I would stick to temping. I have known many people get a permanent job (that they liked,) after temping for a year or two, when the temp job turned into a permanent one.

Happened to a pal of mine 2 years ago; she was temping at a big company (initially for 6 months - to cover someone's maternity leave,) and the woman handed in her notice shortly before she was due back. So my friend was kept on. She was 51.

Has she looked at her Local NHS admin roles.

Has she looked at her Local NHS admin roles.

6 months ago I started a new job, in my 50s.
It was a paycut. I don't mind. New area & I wanted new challenges.
Especially wanted to learn SQL. Hadn't had the chance before.

I want to know what salary OP's mom is trying to get.
Where I work we need & employ buckets of admin people.

Thanks so much, there is amazing advice on here especially about her CV. I'll get her to send it to me so I can check it over.
Shes registered with every agency going!
She calls them all daily, shes trying so hard. I'll tell her about sending her CV in to companies too though as that's also a good idea.
We are Midlands based. She was on 36k. She initially said when she left she puke drop to 27k when she naively thought she'd be employed within the month.
Her tempting roles having been paying £8-9 per hour, and usually a couple of days a week.
The payout she had from her last job was supposed to be for her retirement, but shes just living off it pretty much now. Feel so sorry for her as she's so capable. It's infuriating!

Puke I meant could!

@bluegirlgreen - but it doesn;t matter if they find out you're fifty when you get to interview. Because then they have to interview you and you can shine as a person, irrespective of age. What you want to avoid is being dismissed just because you are 50+ before they've even met you. And you don't have a full CV with no gaps anymore. Just recent worthwhile obs. Honestly, that is the latest advice. No one cares that you worked in the all night garage after uni etc. I have a handful of CVs each tailored to a different aspect of the work I do. the come across as focused and specialist. But the work on them in mainly only stuff I've done in the past 10 years, so the first25 years of my work history has been hugely edited. It works.

Sorry for appalling typos.

Tell her update her CV - looking online for the latest CV advice. Then get her onto the online jobs platform Indeed. I have had loads of success with them. And other agencies poach from them. I've been tracked down for work interviews by Reeds who have seen my details on Indeed. The job I do is somewhat specialist but not particularly. If she has a great track record, she'll get picked up.

Tell her to sign up for job alerts or to keep checking vacancies for any large organisations. Especially anything public sector or semi public sector. They won't use agencies.

So nhs trusts, not just the main hospital but mental health trusts, etc, council, water company, universities, colleges. Does she need to update any qualifications? Has she got whatever the current admin qualification flavour of the month is.....is it still ECDL?

Aw, you are lovely posting for your mum like this and whilst I've no suggestions, just wanted to post that at the same age I've just picked up my career after about the same time away.
It's going well so far, but don't admit I'm shitting it a bit.
Got talked into it but have lots of industry support, but working at a higher level than ever.
If I can do it anyone can. I hope your mum is really proud of you.

@chakano thank you that's a lovely thing to say :-)
She is very proud of me, and vice versa. Shes always been there to raise me and my sister on her own and has helped us both with our careers. I know she genuinely believed she would be at her previous job till she retired so it's such a shame.
She literally doesn't even get accepted for interviews which makes me think its definitely her age which is so wrong.
She applied at the company im at and got nowhere, when I saw the candidates sat in reception for the recruitment morning I dont think a single one that had been invited for interview was age over 25. I was really cross but what can you do!
I've sent her 7 jobs tonight that I've found that could be suitable, all in the NHS, civil service and one at a council in the next town along. Fingers crossed we can get her sorted.
Thanks so much for all of your advice everyone!

Civil service. There's a big focus on inclusive recruitment. I really love it (joined aged 40.. career change).

Another vote for civil service I applied aged 55 years after being in various other jobs and got accepted!!

Business Support Officer in Brum? It's Band 5 anyway. But I think dropping to Band 4 jobs would be wiser & then once she had industry (NHS admin) experience she could go for promotion to Band 5 within a year.

I once sent a letter and CV to lots of local gp surgeries asking if they had any reception/admin vacancies. Some replied and I did get a job out of it.

I've been looking at CV's at the moment as we are recruiting.

Make sure her address is not on her CV, no need for it. Under her name all you need is city / town location, email address, mobile number and LinkedIn profile link.

No need for hobbies on a CV, no one cares. Like a PP said only list your 10 - 15 years of previous roles, no further. Do not date any education. Only list your highest education, if you start to list O Level's or CSE's they can guess your age range.

A short personal summary is standard now. Only about three lines but they have to pack a punch so the recruiter carries on reading. Don't have a CV that is over two pages long, that is too long. Two sides of A4 should be the maximum length.

CV's are no longer a list of tasks that you did under each job, they are a description of what you achieved. Instead of a bullet point saying diary management, you'd say 'Managed three complex, ever changing diaries for Senior Management' for example. Bit of a lame example but hopefully you get the drift.

One of the key things is finding a good recruitment consultant who believes in you. That is very hard as there are good ones and there but a heck of a lot of poor ones out there as well.

Outside of London and the big cities, PA roles are becoming harder to find and the secretarial / admin roles are badly paid and dogsbody type roles

NHS admin dogsbody here!! Got VR from civil service when i had DS then managed to get a part-time job in NHS admin which unusually let me pick my hours! VERY poor pay however. I was 45 when i got this job and i must say i am treated pretty much like a dogsbody but have no choice as the location is convenient as not far from home. Lots of others have suggested NHS admin. My admin colleagues have been to a big meeting where they said there will be more admin roles coming forward, not less. I find the nurses hate IT so it's where i come in but they are being encouraged more and more to do their own IT work which is worrying. Also i know they will recruit older people in my trust.
So there are jobs out there but at low pay.
Good luck to your DM x

I thought age discrimination was illegal now? A friend of mine went back to work in her mid 50s she has just been offered a permanent job, having been a consultant for a few years. They don’t know how old she is, she wears trendy work clothes, Whistles etc and is very well groomed without being dated. Having a daughter is a great asset to her as she can immediately see what younger women are wearing. Sending her masses of good luck!

Make sure she has a good LinkedIn profile. DD is a headhunter and this is her first port of call. No need to give indication of age, I've done a lot of recruitment over the past few years and everyone we've employed is fifty plus!

CV library is also very good.

Make sure she has a good LinkedIn profile. DD is a headhunter and this is her first port of call. No need to give indication of age, I've done a lot of recruitment over the past few years and everyone we've employed is fifty plus!

CV library is also very good.

Make sure she has a good LinkedIn profile. DD is a headhunter and this is her first port of call. No need to give indication of age, I've done a lot of recruitment over the past few years and everyone we've employed is fifty plus!

CV library is also very good.