Welcome to a Blog Especially for Older Workers

Theme Photo by Papaioannou Kostas on Unsplash

The 2020 Census identified nearly 188 million people in the U.S. who were at least 50 years old—people like us. And every family member, friend, neighbor, or colleague we know who has hit the Big 5-0 in the last five years has joined their ranks.

Yes, many of these folks are retired (a topic for future posts), but many are, of course, still in the workforce.

If you’re among them, this blog is for you.

A changing world of work

So much has changed in the world of work over the past five decades.

Knowledge and service roles have replaced many blue-collar manufacturing jobs.

Women and other traditionally underrepresented groups have made advances and begun to realize more career opportunities (though, of course, there is still much more progress to be made).

Technology has redefined many previously “manual” jobs and improved speed and efficiency. Technology has also created new categories of jobs while killing or diminishing others.

The internet and mobile devices have given us access to an unprecedented quantity of information, while also making it easier than ever to waste time, isolate from others, and feed an insatiable appetite for entertainment and virtual connectivity.

Then there are the changes we’ve seen recently. The rise of Artificial Intelligence has threatened to upend and reshape the workforce in unprecedented ways. Economic uncertainty has risen to its highest level since the pandemic. The government and many private employers have begun laying off thousands.

So much has changed, and continues to change. But one important thing is staying with us.

The infuriating staying power of ageism

Ageism is an ugly and powerful word. That figures, as it’s also an ugly and powerful force. Ageism continues to thrive because employers (hiring managers and decision-makers) continue to prefer hiring younger (and often less-expensive) people and giving them career advancement opportunities while overlooking and making unfair assumptions about those over 50.

Often, these decisions aren’t made with the intent of being intentionally ageist. In future posts, I’ll discuss how that can be and why it is arguably worse than blatant, intentional discrimination.

Why this blog?

Admittedly, there are a lot of career and workforce blogs out there, as well as media covering career issues and the modern dynamic of work.

However, as I’ve mentioned above, older workers are a unique group facing distinct challenges that aren’t experienced by younger workers. Here I want to talk about those challenges, as well as some of the overlooked advantages that come with age and experience.

I’ll talk about the things we can’t control but mostly I want to focus on what we can control.

How we approach our jobs and careers. How we adapt to change. How we market ourselves.

And how we maintain confidence and a positive self-image. After all, if we don’t do this for ourselves, who will?

The challenges we face

A few years ago, I began hearing from my age 50 and older colleagues who had been laid off or displaced and were looking for work. Many of them had been great employees, added a tremendous amount of value, and were exceptional team players. They were also terrific people.

But once they were “on the market” and looking for new roles with new employers, often for the first time in years, none of these things mattered.

What did seem to matter was their age. When they applied for jobs for which they believed they were a perfect fit, they got no response. When they did land interviews, they were disqualified for one or more common reasons: They were overqualified. They wanted too high a starting salary. They lacked knowledge or experience with technology that was, they were told, central to the position.

In the end, many of these folks found new jobs. But their new positions often paid less and were far different from their previous roles. Some had to relocate or, at the very least, change industries.

And with few exceptions, landing a new job took far longer than they had anticipated or hoped.

Does this sound familiar?

Let’s go back to that list of reasons why these quality older workers were passed over for roles. “Overqualified,” “too expensive,” and “out of touch with new technology” are examples of the language of ageism.

While not all employers who pass on older candidates for these reasons do so deliberately, the truth is that many 50 and older workers are subject to workplace biases that make it much more difficult to stay in their current jobs, land promotions, or attain new roles with other organizations.

It’s infuriating. But it’s our reality.

What’s my story?

While I am, demographically, an older worker, my story begins nearly a half-century ago with my father.

My dad was a blue-collar guy who had worked for years as a truck driver. By the mid-1970s, he had worked 20 years for the same company, making runs from our hometown in the Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia to locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Michigan, and Indiana.

These trips regularly took him away from home overnight and sometimes for multiple days. But he enjoyed the work, took a lot of pride in his job and his employer, and loved the road. His job defined him in ways I didn’t fully understand until I reached adulthood.

A couple of serious heart attacks made it necessary for him to step away from the pressure, long hours, and eat-and-sleep-when-you-can lifestyle of an over-the-road trucker. When he approached his employer about the possibility of moving into a different role, as he knew the business well, he was told that if he couldn’t continue to drive a truck, he’d no longer have a job there.

For a middle-aged man in a small town with limited job opportunities, with bills to pay, and with a wife and three children at home, this was a gut-punch. His heart condition always front and center, he eventually qualified for Social Security disability benefits. That provided income, but it didn’t fill the void left by being shut out of the workforce decades before he was ready to stop working.

The lesson I, like many of my generation who saw their parents lose jobs, took from my father’s experience was that there are limits to how much your employer values you. Even if it’s a good employer that tries to do the right thing.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t go all in on your job and do what you can to help your employer be successful. Full investment in your work can have real personal benefits, including a sense of purpose and belonging, and (hopefully) positioning you for career advancement.

But things happen. And they can change quickly.

Forty-five years after my father lost his job, I, like him, was closing in on a 20-year career with one company. Then, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and company leadership found themselves faced with hard choices, they laid off many long-tenured employees, including me.

It could be argued that there were sound business reasons for laying off more-tenured, higher-salary workers. I won’t speculate about whether they ultimately did the right and fair thing. But I know how I felt.

I felt like my dad.

Suddenly, I was the displaced worker on the wrong side of his 50^th birthday, applying for jobs and hearing nothing. Being informed that my salary requirements were above what the job paid. Fielding questions about my scant experience with enterprise software that I could have mastered, given the opportunity.

Ultimately, I got another job and, eventually found my true calling, building and running my own content creation business. But in navigating the bumpy, unfamiliar road of an unemployed 50-something, I learned some important lessons. 

I learned about the value I have to offer. About how to tell my story. About the importance of my network.

And I learned what matters most (spoiler alert: it’s isn’t my job, though work certainly has its place).

Let’s share

Now, I want to share what I’ve learned with you. I also want to continue learning and growing by examining the workplace issues, trends, and realities that impact us older workers.

And I want to hear from you!

I believe that, as older workers, when we help each other and when we rise together, together we can finish strong.

Let’s do it together. What do you say?