By Eileen Spatz of Eileen to The Right
Among other mishaps that I have experienced over the past year, I also managed to find myself unemployed. SO not cool to be unemployed at age 57! With the timing of my divorce back in 2006 perfectly dovetailing with the beginning of the Great Recession, I have been in perpetual financial Armageddon ever since. I NEEDED that job and felt a surge of panic wash over me when it was suddenly—poof!—gone.
Ask anyone over the age of 50 how difficult it is to try to find work these days. One quickly learns that the ‘new’ way of job hunting does not work in our favor. If we list our work experience with dates, and also include the year we graduated from college on our resume or online job application, I suspect the software screener just deletes the applicant immediately. That savvy computer system just knows that if a job candidate is over the age of 45, they may as well be dead. That, or if the resume actually makes it to an actual human being at said company, that person sees the dates and conjures up an image of an old, gray-haired lady, creaky in the knees and half blind—clearly unable to contribute in today’s demanding workplace. Such is the state of age-discrimination in our day.
After dozens of resumes having been submitted over the various online job boards, and never receiving even an acknowledgment of them, much less a request to meet me or grant an interview, I just became dejected and insecurity began to seep in. It’s a terrible feeling to know how much you can offer a business or employer, only to be blocked from ever stepping foot into the building to shake anyone’s hand, simply because the electronic job search system has predetermined you to be an old geezer with nothing to offer.
Last year I wrote an article about how much I had changed over the years, from a brave, can-do gal to a scaredy cat who is afraid to take risks. I referenced my grandfather, whom I idolized, as my lifelong mentor and inspiration—an entrepreneurial powerhouse who I happened to take after. In this article, I lamented how much I missed being that confident woman, willing to gamble on an idea because I believed in my own talents and abilities–-that somehow I’d become afraid.
Well, grandpa would be proud of me now! After stewing for a couple weeks after the job loss, I jumped into action. I made a decision to undertake two endeavors, one to pay the bills and one to feed my passion for writing. So now, a couple months later, I am off and running with each of these undertakings.
I have created a business model for my marketable skills and have been pounding the pavement selling the concept the old fashioned way. I walk in to the business, smile and introduce myself, and then offer a brief explanation of my services. It has been so fulfilling to see the folks light up when I am describing what I can do for them, and how receptive they are to me personally. These are the things that do not come through in online job applications. These potential clients could see that I was clearly not some old broken down battle-axe, but a vibrant, confident woman who has energy to spare and skills that their company can benefit from. Going old school is the right way to land work if you are over 45, opposed to the ineffective ‘new’ way where you are ignored and tossed into the vapors of an electronic round file.
I have also built a website– all by myself, an excruciatingly frustrating and difficult task for a person with zero experience in techy land. But I did it! It is flawed and will need constant tweaking, but I can proudly say I built my own website at age 57. I now have a little ‘house’ for all my writings, and can keep things fresh by utilizing the fluid platform provided by my blog page. It is exciting to see it all come together, and I am combining it all with my passion for homeschooling–something that I will continue to advocate for and encourage young families to try.
So there you have it :I took those lemons and built my very own lemonade stand. Yes, I will eventually need to get some customers to come by and take a sip, but I know in my heart that they will arrive. If you build it, they will come! By returning to the wonderful example I grew up with, seeing my grandpa create one successful enterprise after another, and by also revisiting the old fashioned way to sell oneself–with a smile and a handshake, I will have a blast hawking lemonade.
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