Job hunting at 50+

[Frenchfancy]

I'm really struggling to find a new job.

I am currently employed in a very small company (just me and a married couple). As it's a small company I do pretty much everything from processing orders to customer service, admin and stock control. I work 30 hours a week which worked well as I had teens that needed me around. I was given to understand that I could go full time when I wanted, but now I want to it has been refused.

Prior to this job I was self employed for 19 years in a successful tourist business that was closed down due to COVID.

Prior to that I was an engineer running multi million dollar projects.

I have sent out my CV to over 50 companies, had a couple of telephone interviews but nothing else. I've had my CV checked out by professionals who say it's great so I have come to the conclusion that the problem is my age.

I need to work another 15 years before retirement. It's so frustrating.

Anyone else in the same boat or have any advice?

I am in a similar boat although I've only starting applying for jobs in the last month or two.

What sort of roles are you applying for? Are you going back into engineering?

I've been advised that my engineering knowledge is probably out of date so I've been looking at more general project management work as well as other management type work. Trouble is I'm too experienced/senior for the junior role and not experienced enough for the senior ones.

Have you considered the civil service? I am focusing on the public sector, in part because public sector employers are more age positive.

Similar age to you, and when job hunting I only included my last 15ish years of employment, and no DOB on CV

Excellent direction

OP has skills and could certainly fit in that envroment

Your age should not be included on your CV.

I’m struggling too, senior public sector trying for senior civil service or senior voluntary sector. Haven’t cracked it yet.

I would disguise your age with some smoke and mirror techniques. Education does not need any dates and just disclose the relevant bits of your cv.

I've taken my DOB off my CV but as the last 15 years is self employed/ very small company I feel my older experience needs to stay on which means my age is noticeable. I have taken off older experience and I'll see if there is anything else I can do to disguise it.

I'll take a closer look at public sector work.

Don't give up hope. I've just landed a new job in a sector new to me aged 59.

At first I wasn't getting interviews, so I changed my CV so that the only jobs with dates are the last two, covering the past 15 years. I also left off my date of birth and didn't put dates on my education details either.

I noticed that CVs are different these days from when I last applied for a job, so I changed mine so it is skills based, as I've had a very varied career. I tweaked my CV to include the key words in the spec for every job I applied for.

I started getting interest immediately and actually got the first job I interviewed for. It's public sector, so more age positive as a pp said. I haven't started yet, but I am really excited about it.

Good luck to all of you job hunting.

Congratulations @DramaAlpaca!

Anyone applying for public sector roles - it would help you to get a friend on a forum or someone you know re how to complete an application form as certain boroughs have certain tendencies and expect you to very pc IMO

Read the job spec, and shortlisting criteria and ensure you follow that to at least get an interview and often they tell you what would be asked in an interview.

Civil service isn't the best suggestion. They're making cuts if you hadn't heard. It was in the newspapers late last year.

www.gov.uk/government/news/end-to-civil-service-expansion-and-review-of-equality-and-diversity-spending-announced-in-productivity-drive#:~:text=The%20Chancellor%20has%20today%2C%202,increase%20efficiencies%20and%20boost%20productivity.&text=The%20Civil%20Service%20workforce%20has,of%20June%202023%20around%20488%2C000.

Trouble is I'm too experienced/senior for the junior role and not experienced enough for the senior ones.

Is that more likely to be the issue than your age? Your work history has a variety of experiences including a long stint self employed which can make it tricky to show your strengths. I’d focus on making sure your cv or application gives clear examples of how you meet each part of the person spec, because that’s how they score for shortlisting.

As a PP said CVs are very different these days. Don't put every single job you've had. Only include the last 5-10 years with details and the rest can just be a summary of company names and role titles or something like previous roles include xyz.

Then put a section in for Transferable Skills and use this area to put in all of the great stuff you have had from previous roles eg excellent project management skills to deliver up to £xm of spend and generating £xm of benefit through focused and organised processes blah blah blah.

I am very surprised that the professionals who checked your CV didn't tell you this.

Don't include DOB, don't include GCSEs/O-level/standard grades (if Scotland) as no one cares if you have higher qualifications. If you have professional qualifications include those (and they trounce the GCSEs etc hence why no one cares) but don't include the qualified date just say something like 15+ years post qualified experience.

Hopefully that might help although ageism is definitely a thing.

All of this is taken into account. I have a summary, transferable skills section, career highlights etc.

I only have 3 jobs on my CV, but along with the specialist, consider that I can't take off the older project management role as without it I only have self employed and very small business on the CV which doesn't then match up with my abilities/experience. I wonder whether I could take the dates off altogether and put something like 10+ years.

I only have my highest professional qualification. None of the others are listed.

Has anyone had success with LinkedIn? I've updated my profile and up to now have had no real interest but someone has contacted me today to add them to their contacts and I see he has a job offer which I fit the requirements. Who knows!

I sent my CV to the contact through LinkedIn and he has just replied saying he would like to talk to me! Fingers crossed

How many connections do you have on LinkedIn and how often do you post? That'll determine visibility and therefore engagement.

@Frenchfancy yes to taking off those dates, and fingers crossed that something comes up from your LinkedIn connection today

Your cover letter is what will make you stand out. Have you tried looking for fixed term contracts rather than permanent roles? They can be a great way into a company and once you're there you can keep an eye on internal role postings.
Hoped the LI convo goes well. Worth seeking out a few good recruiters in the fields you're looking for - they will do the hard work for you.

So I had the phone call, all very positive said that he would like to have me in for an interview in the next week or so.

But... it's not the job I thought it was. It's basically a dead end admin job. And the set up is pretty sexist - talking about "the girls in the office". He even asked me if I had children and if they were older.

I'm feeling very down about it this evening.

That sounds disappointing, but is it the kind of role you could use to segue into an office manager role?

It might be worth it for interview practice?

Unfortunately there is definitely no scope for an office management role.

I'm taking all the advice on board and trying to stay positive.

Thank you for mentioning office management @passiveconstellation . It wasn't a term I have been using in my searches and it has thrown up a couple of interesting possibilities.