Publisher’s Blog

Last week was the annual National Employ Older Workers Week. Numerous newspaper and blog articles were written on the topic. Many local organizations conducted older worker career fairs.

I wonder just how effective these are in the current economy.  But maybe, just maybe, this economy can be an opportunity for older workers.

A story I’ve told often. It was 1991 and my son Bryant graduated from Tufts University with an engineering degree. In the slow economy of that time, there were few jobs for new engineers.  And he had none.

One day, shortly thereafter, he called me while standing in line at a job fair in Boston.  His complaint to me was “I’ll never get a job here - most of the other job seekers in line were my (that’s me) age”. Needless to say it took me awhile to get my laughter under control. (more…)

I use Google Alerts quite extensively to keep up-to-date on a number of topics.  What a surprise yesterday when I received notice of 3 articles, 2 recent and 1 older, about the value of older boomer and senior workers.  So often you read all the myths/reasons that companies cannot, or are unwilling to even consider, recruiting older employees.  (remember that older is relative)  You’ll hear more from me in future posts about these “supposed” reasons for not utilizing this growing workforce

But I digress. The first article - Oldies can be goodies when it comes to workers’ mind set, by Tom Johnson - of the New Jersey Star-Ledger quotes Douglas Klein President of Sirota Survey Intelligence:

Sirota Survey Intelligence, a firm specializing in attitude research, says businesses should more carefully consider older workers as part of their hiring plans, especially now in a tight economy, when each new hire takes on greater importance.

Older workers — 63 and up — bring a higher level of satisfaction, pride and willingness to go the “extra mile” to their jobs than younger generations, Sirota’s research found. They also express the strongest satisfaction with their compensation. (more…)

What a pleasant surprise to open the NY Times Sunday paper and see three familiar names of leaders in the job search industry. All I consider friends. Richard Nelson Bolles spoke at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan recently. If you haven’t heard of Richard Bolles, he is the author of the classic job hunting reference book “What Color Is Your Parachute“. The 39th annual edition will be published in October 2008.

As part of his presentation at the Manhattan Y, two of the resources he recommended for online job search were RileyGuide.com and Job-Hunt.org. Both I know well. Margaret Riley Dikel and Susan Joyce, respectively, operate the two sites. Both are no-nonsense editors/authors that take tremendous pride in the quality and depth of information offered. The material is well researched and the tell-it-like-it-is is refreshing. I recommend that all job seekers visit both sites as the material from each is complimentary.

Richard Bolles, still going strong at 81, conducts periodic workshops at his home in the San Francisco Bay area. Nancy Peterson, of Workforce50.com, recently attended his workshop and will write more in a future blog post. To learn more about Richard, his books and workshops go to JobHuntersBible.com .

I have to confess, the line that really caught my attention in this article was the reference to our president, “the Decider”, and the statement that “to decide is to kill off all possibilities but one.”  It turns out that we, as complex human beings, really can improve, not just maintain, the health of our brains as we age. 

In The New York Times on May 4th (Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?), Janet Rae-Dupree challenges us to consciously develop new habits in our lives.  Apparently this process of developing new habits, creates parallel synaptic paths in the brain AND brand new brain cells.  Yay! The result?  Increased creativity and innovation that we can all use to improve both our personal and work lives. 

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