My position was eliminated at my last job after 11 years so getting back into the job market has been quite a shock. I feel like I have landed in a totally different world! Everything is online, which has good points and bad. I like being able to apply from my home office at whatever time of day I choose but I also feel like we are losing the personal touch. If your resume doesn't make it past the applicant tracking systems, employers don't even see your resume. Even signing up at a temporary agency has me jumping through hoops. I understand the need for security and background checks but it just takes forever! I'm surprised they didn't fingerprint and take a cheek DNA swab when I signed up. Anyone else as frustrated as me in job hunting?
That was me up till 2010, you have my deepest sympathy because I know first hand how awful it really is. One of the things I would suggest is for you to remove any sort of date that might give an indication of your age. You can always address it at the interview but don't close a door because of your age to soon. I started with the temp thing and I did get placed more then once. If you have never worked for a temp agency you need to prepare yourself for a shock. These people have one objective and it is not to get you a job, it seems it is to keep repeat clients happy. Even though they might tell you it is full time or long term don't count on it. I ended up working two years barely full time in a place I would have loved to have been hired by. The place had some employees that treated temps like dirt. It is easy to get resentful fast when you have to hear about raises, and time off and bonus, yet you know you get none of that. In fact you are scared to death to take time off even for the doctor because you want to be hired. Be clear in your head that many corporations bring in temps right before they downsize. In both gigs I worked as a temp I could see it coming clear as day. Keep searching for a job on your own, just don't have them call the agency for a reference. What I did was increase my odds. Because I only worked part time I took a second part time job that was more flexible. I worked both for two and a half years. In both instances there were very old employees that should have retired years before, one woman was 73, the other 69 years old. I played the odds that I would have a 50% chance one would retire eventually and I was right. I now have a nice full time salaried position that is not to overly strenuous, the other place (the better corporate place) downsized and the entire department was sacked about 5 months after I gave notice. I made the right call. Good Luck Marie there are still places for gals like us!
I've only tried temp agencies twice, and each time I was hired for a full-time position. The first time, I was much younger, and that led me to a job with Champion Paper Company, which was my highest-paying job ever. In fact, they bought out my contract with the temp agency after two weeks. The last time I tried a temp agency was when my wife and I had to move to North Carolina a few years ago. They sent me to a background investigation company, where I did have to work out my contract, but I was hired full time once that was completed.
be real careful in filling out the paper work, online or in person, as most agencies and companies are now doing background checks and if you make an error on the "exact dates", ie the recruiter told me to just put down ball park dates, only to find out that they compare what I gave them with the background check. My being off about 30 days on a job I had 35 years ago...kicked me out of the process as an "unverified employment". Neither W2s or hiring/releasing paper work was good enough to prove my side. That background report, in error or not, is gospel. I now preface my comments or written apps, with I believe the date was ..... It is a very different market, not for the faint of heart, nor the sensitive. Hundreds of resumes and not a word from any one as to your status. AS Jenn wrote, take any confirming dates and terms out of your resume or applications.
Having worked as a background investigator doing just that, verifying employment applications, I can tell you that we go well beyond the information that is supplied on an employment application. But that depends on the employer who is hiring us; some are only looking for general verification, meaning that if a date is within a year or so, that's fine. Otherwise, we use that as a starting point, and we pretend to be whoever we have to be in order to get the information we need, but without actually lying. In other words, we might lead someone to believe we are with the government, but we won't actually tell them that we are. When an inaccuracy is found, such as an employment date being off, it is indeed labeled "unverified" or "inaccurate," depending on the requirements of the employer who hired us. The details of what we found are included, the problem being that, if an employer has several applications for one position, and some are not so labeled, they'll never read the details.
I have been self employed for years. I recently worked a insurance benefits enrollment at one of the large local hospitals that lasted for 3 weeks. I had some one else telling me what time to start and stop working after being my own boss for years. I was very happy to see the end of the enrollment time. I did have a contract that I worked for 13 yrs as a contracted legal researcher which just ended that required I was out of the home office at least 2 days a week. I would like to find something like that again.
my old job, just doesn't exist any more. Here or offshore. I used to be a field engineer for high end graphics workstations. For 6 years it was the best job in the world. I got a bit of long distance travel, a lot of local travel - some overnight, and a bit of work from home. Now that the industry really does not repair anything any more, just reload software or replace the hardware, altogether. I later found an even better job - Technical Instructor, imagine for this talkative North Carolina boy, a job where you get paid to talk - teaching folks in person something that you are almost expert at. That one lasted a couple of years, as the powers that be thought that Computer Based Instruction could replace in-person, expert skill, free form education so they fired all of us. A multimillion dollar contribution to the Corporation, gone in less than two weeks. Of course the acquisition was for +$2Billion, so a few million for training was pocket change waste of time to the Corporation. The job market has changed a lot, and for us older folks, not for the better.
I've been on a job search for a few months now - online. I'm pretty good at reading the hiring policies particularly 'does not discriminate dadada' and to kind of piggyback on Dave David just the length of time on one job can give an employer a guesstimate of your age. On many online applications you are asked for this information. I was called for an interview just on the basis of my resume and was told that I clearly had the experience for the position but then I heard we are looking for someone to 'fit in.' I thought to myself why wouldn't I 'fit in'? So now I'm concentrating my search for at home work and not have the concern about having to 'fit in'.
I had the same problem. I stayed home and raised my kids for many years. When I tried to re-enter the job market, everything had changed so much! The last time I worked in the private sector, everything was conducted in person. I was like a fish out of water. Finally in 2010, after a year of trying, I was hired by a huge retail company. My niece, who also works there, actually asked her manager to pull up my application. Otherwise, they would never have noticed me. I've been there ever since. I don't care for the job, but it's proven difficult to find a better paying one in this economy.
The current environment is ideal for home based busines upstarts. Older people maybe able to find work in their fields but in a different manner. I see alot of people becoming coachs and consultants in their fields to help others get their companies started without the long learning curves or the hit and miss tactics needed. I would like to be a coach but I don't know what I could coach a person in.
I've worked in different fields, and for various types and sizes of companies over the years. I've seen a big change in how large corporations treat employees, and it's not for the better. I would recommend looking at smaller companies in your area, because at least in my experience, they are less discriminating, and more open to hiring people with experience, as well as sometimes being more flexible with regard to challenges in abilities and skills. Also, they tend to become familiar with your work ethic more quickly, since there are less layers in between management and employees, and they are often very appreciative of loyalty.
I wish I had something encouraging to tell you but I am pretty much in the same boat. I have been looking for work for quite some time now. I have skills in the office area but these days its seems like they are more interested in hiring younger people not those in their fifties because we are closer to retirement age. So, is all lost no I know someone who is a bit older then me who manage to find a job recently, yes they had experience in a field that is highly in demand, the education field but this at least tells me that there are still jobs out there for people who do have experience. So, all I can do and advise you to do is not give up, no matter how hard it may seem.
Age of retirement in Australia has been raised to 70 years old, legally-- with the choice of staying on the job or continuing work. This is a good incentive. I've seen people go in depressed state because they can't find work even trying hard. Work and employment is healthy and worth doing while we can. When my youngest children-- at my age 53 with 9 and 12- year old children begin going to high school, I will see to it that I will go back to the work-force with my husband, 60.
It's sad to read a thread like this because a laid off employee's only chance for employment is thru the temps which we call them contractual employees who may be hired for up to 5 months only. They even have a term for that - ENDO - to mean end of contract which, as I said is a maximum of 5 months because working for more than that period makes one automatically hired by the company. So that means if the company forgets to end the contract of that contractua then that employee is considered hired. We have some cases in our office where we would hire a contractual employee. However, we would offer him a permanent status after the probationary period of 5 months. That contractual employment is mainly the territory of the young. But if you are more than 30 years old, the agency will hesitate to take you in because they prefer the young applicants. Although in janitorial services, age and gender do not matter.
The highest paying job I've ever had was obtained through a temporary agency. The company bought out my contract, and I was there until they closed. The only other time I have used a temporary agency, seven years ago, I was also hired full time by the first place they sent me to.