3 Reasons Employers Want To Hire YOU

(when you\’re over 50)

Many people facing a career change later in life have fears over their employability which prevent them from properly showcasing their strengths. You may worry that ageism still exists in spite of the legislation to outlaw it. You may worry that you have given your best years already. And you may think that youngsters have more to offer than you do.

Now while not all employers are as open to employing mature team members as I\’d like them to be, the ones who are offering your dream job will be! After all, someone bigoted and discriminatory doesn\’t really sound like someone you\’d like to work with, does it?

The great news is that you don\’t need all employers to want to hire you – just one!

Your job is to find your dream employer; the one who shares your values, recognises your strengths and is willing to pay the right amount for the benefit of your experience. Sounds easy right? Well, it\’s a simple process but not necessarily an easy one.

The first thing to tackle is your mindset. A 57-year-old woman, who is under severe stress at her current job, recently told me: \”If I leave, I know I won\’t get the same money anywhere else and I still have my son at university and other bills to pay.\” You may be thinking or saying the same sorts of things and believing them to be true. However, this kind of negative thinking, is not only unhelpful; it\’s deeply flawed.

I asked her: \”How do you know that no-one else would pay you the same money?\” She couldn\’t reply. Her belief was based on nothing more than fear and a cursory glance at the job ads in the local paper when she was having a really bad day. She had done no proper research and she wasn\’t looking for opportunities in the right places.

Of course, you have amazing individual strengths to share with your dream employer and if you don\’t know what they are then I would urge you to work with your career coach to identify them. To get you off on the right foot though, I\’ll share three reasons why your dream employer wants to hire you right now.

3 Reasons Employers Want To Hire YOU… 

1 You\’re reliable. You\’re the kind of person who arrives early and doesn\’t watch the clock. You\’re not the type to take \”sickies\” or \”duvet days.\” You\’re flexible and will cover for other team members, work late if necessary and may be open to job-sharing and part-time opportunities.

2 The quality of your work is outstanding. You believe that if a job\’s worth doing, it\’s worth doing well. You are mature enough to recognise any skills gaps that you may have and you\’ve trained yourself to fill those gaps. You are experienced. You\’ve been working successfully for decades and you have a track record, not just a certificate.

3 You\’re great to have around and people like you. Customers recommend you and keep coming back. Colleagues enjoy working with you. You\’ve learnt what makes people tick and you behave appropriately. (You can use a \’phone for actually talking to people!)

When I work with my personal clients, I explain that these are the only three strengths that any employer needs or even has a right to expect. Reliability, quality of work and appropriate behaviour. Indeed, the lack of any of these is the only way you can get in trouble at work when you think about it!

The key is to be able to demonstrate effectively that you have these three strengths in your paper applications, on your social media profiles and, crucially, at interview. Preparing genuine, real-life stories to share with your dream employer is the way forward. Describing, clearly and succinctly how reliable you are, using an example that actually happened to you will be far more convincing than telling the prospective employer what you would be like if you got the job.

In my experience, the best teams have a mixture of team members, in terms of age, experience and other factors. Top performers in my teams have often been men and women who have a few miles on the clock and what motivators they are to their younger colleagues! Often, they make it look so easy and less experienced team members are forever trying to work out their \”secret!\”

I could go on and on about the benefits of hiring you, the mature worker, but I\’ll leave you with one last tip. Show your enthusiasm. There\’s nothing that \”ages\” us more than a tired, been there, done that, sigh. Employers hire people who show that they are excited to do the work, whatever their age. Go for it!

If you have questions or comments about this post or any other career related subject, please fill in the form below or contact me by email!

This post was written to support #JobActionDay2015 –

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Copyright: Louise Jenner, The Dream Job Coach – 2015.

Photo Credits: www.Pixabay.com www.NJFPhotography.com