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Age Or Attitude?
Not long ago, I cheerfully plunged into the second half of my first century on this terrestrial plane. I used to view anyone over the age of 30 as “old.” Today, my more than 50-year-old eyes see very little age difference between myself and my 70-year old parents.
By: Dan Boudreau
Not long ago, I cheerfully plunged into the second half of my first century on this terrestrial plane. I used to view anyone over the age of 30 as “old.” Today, my more than 50-year-old eyes see very little age difference between myself and my 70-year old parents.
By: Dan Boudreau
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While I have the good fortune to be self-employed, I see more and more baby boomers being displaced from the work force. Downsized, right-sized, fired, bumped, replaced, early retired, bought out, kicked out or given the hairy handshake (not many folks seem to get the golden handshake anymore). A slap on the butt and it’s out into the big world.
What do you do with an unemployed baby boomer? I had a fascinating chat with a friend recently who is in his mid-fifties and is competing for a number of management level jobs after 25 years in business for himself and a one year sabbatical. After reaching the very short-list and losing a few major competitions, his question was, “Does age count?”
My observations on this topic arise from being a baby boomer and employing hundreds of people during the past couple of decades.
The all-American dream included working hard, retiring early, and living for many blissful years off the fruits of your efforts. It’s a beautiful thing… when it works. But what happens if life doesn’t cooperate and things don’t work out that way? In my business planning workshops I am seeing an increasing number of boomers falling through the cracks of the dream.
Baby boomers are everywhere! With 100 million of us in North America, we have always been a force to reckon with. Now it appears many of our ranks are in the job market. Productive, intelligent, skilled, highly knowledgeable… and unemployed. But are we employable? More specifically, are we less employable due to our age?
When we attempt to “retire” at any age we need to do something. And if you’re going to live another 40 to 50 years it’s going to cost plenty. From a financial perspective it looks like we had best plan on croaking by the age of 70 or face an embarrassing evaporation of RRSPs, and poverty. Finances aside, most of us will likely be working at something during our graying years, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Is age a sub-surface factor on the interview tally sheet?
Here are a few of the things I look when adding a new member to my team:
1. Attitude
This is certainly an aspect of yourself that you have control over. Keep it upbeat, positive and supportive to those around you. Be a learner. Be open to learning new ways and information. Spend far more time listening than talking. Critical to survival in our organization is one’s ability to serve customers effectively; go the extra mile for internal and external customers. We enjoy working with team members who are committed to our success and dedicated to making a difference for ourselves and our clients. Ideally, each team member is self-directed and motivated. Our workplace culture is a rich blend of work, creativity, laughter, learning and fun.
Page 2
Dan Boudreau is author of Business Plan or BUST! and hosts the RiskBuster Blog at www.riskbuster.com/blog.
What do you do with an unemployed baby boomer? I had a fascinating chat with a friend recently who is in his mid-fifties and is competing for a number of management level jobs after 25 years in business for himself and a one year sabbatical. After reaching the very short-list and losing a few major competitions, his question was, “Does age count?”
My observations on this topic arise from being a baby boomer and employing hundreds of people during the past couple of decades.
The all-American dream included working hard, retiring early, and living for many blissful years off the fruits of your efforts. It’s a beautiful thing… when it works. But what happens if life doesn’t cooperate and things don’t work out that way? In my business planning workshops I am seeing an increasing number of boomers falling through the cracks of the dream.
Baby boomers are everywhere! With 100 million of us in North America, we have always been a force to reckon with. Now it appears many of our ranks are in the job market. Productive, intelligent, skilled, highly knowledgeable… and unemployed. But are we employable? More specifically, are we less employable due to our age?
When we attempt to “retire” at any age we need to do something. And if you’re going to live another 40 to 50 years it’s going to cost plenty. From a financial perspective it looks like we had best plan on croaking by the age of 70 or face an embarrassing evaporation of RRSPs, and poverty. Finances aside, most of us will likely be working at something during our graying years, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
Is age a sub-surface factor on the interview tally sheet?
Here are a few of the things I look when adding a new member to my team:
1. Attitude
This is certainly an aspect of yourself that you have control over. Keep it upbeat, positive and supportive to those around you. Be a learner. Be open to learning new ways and information. Spend far more time listening than talking. Critical to survival in our organization is one’s ability to serve customers effectively; go the extra mile for internal and external customers. We enjoy working with team members who are committed to our success and dedicated to making a difference for ourselves and our clients. Ideally, each team member is self-directed and motivated. Our workplace culture is a rich blend of work, creativity, laughter, learning and fun.
Page 2
Dan Boudreau is author of Business Plan or BUST! and hosts the RiskBuster Blog at www.riskbuster.com/blog.
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