What goes around comes around
For years, we've talked about the tech industry favoring younger employees.
Tech leaders have openly shared their thoughts:
Mark Zuckerberg: "Young people are just smarter."
Keith Rabois: "Don’t hire anyone over the age of 30."
Elon Musk: "It is just impossible to stay in touch with the people if you are many generations older than them."
But Zuckerberg turned 40 last year, so now it's cool to have some experience in the tech world again.
Research by SignalFire and Korn Ferry shows that the Top 15 tech companies and many of the top start-ups believe that they hired too many early career graduates in 2021-2022. As such, they're trying to compensate by hiring more experienced folks who can step in quickly and use their accumulated wisdom to drive results quickly.
I am seeing an anecdotal increase in folks who are 50+ landing at smaller companies and startups - part of this is that these companies are hiring at a faster rate than Fortune 500 companies. The other piece is that these companies have limited resources and value the breadth of expertise that experienced workers bring to the table.
My advice: if you are job searching, open your mind to smaller companies and startups. They may be looking for someone just like you to step in and make a difference.
Question of the week
What is your cutoff year for job experience? By looking at the sample resumes in your job search guide, it seems like you omitted the years for any job experience before 2000 and put that under the heading “Additional Experience.” Any job experience occurring in 2000 or later gets listed under the heading “Professional Experience,” and explicitly includes the range of years worked.
I don't have a hard and fast rule here. If a worker has 20+ years of experience, I will typically share relevant experience from the past 15-20 years with years and then share the rest of the experience in "Additional Experience" without the years. You want to show some track record of performance, so showing the past 20 years with dates allows you to do this.
In case you missed these LinkedIn posts:
"I haven't updated my resume in 15 years and I have no idea on how to get started."
Poll: Do you work (check mail, answer calls, etc) while on vacation? (1900+ votes)
Making the transition from federal government to corporate roles may not feel straightforward, but it's definitely attainable.
"Will the Open to Work banner help me to get a job?"
"I can afford to retire - I just don't want to."
This market is as tough as I've seen it.
Want to up your game on LinkedIn?
Need a new resume or executive bio?
I deliver resumes, executive bios, LinkedIn profile optimization, and 1-hour strategy calls.
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Limited time only: We'll be offering the current version of the Ageless Careers Toolkit through June 30, so if you're looking to take the course, you'll want to start it now.
The Ageless Careers Toolkit is a self-paced job search program with 5 modules:
- Build Your Ageless Career: I answer your biggest job search questions and troubleshoot common issues for Gen X and Baby Boomer job seekers
- Write Your Ageless Resume: I've written 1000s of resumes - this is my 43-page guide for writing a winning resume
- Craft Your Ageless Cover Letter: My tips for writing a cover letter in 10 minutes or less
- The Art of Ageless Interviewing: Boost your confidence through my biggest interview tips
- Create Your Ageless LinkedIn Presence: We are going to optimize your LinkedIn profile so that opportunities find you
The toolkit includes both written guides and video presentations with 10 sample resumes across various functions (marketing, finance, engineering, manufacturing, sales, etc) and roles (Project Manager, Director, VP, C-Suite).
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Other ways that I can help:
Question of the Week: Do you have a question that you would to have answered in the Question of the Week? If so, reply to this email and let me know what's on your mind.
Corporate Presentations: I deliver customized presentations for businesses and universities, offering webinars/in-person presentations across topics including ageism, resume best practices, LinkedIn optimization, job search, and more.
Hiring Help: Reach out if you have any open roles that you would like to share with this community.
Sponsorships: Reach Gen X and Baby Boomer executives by sponsoring this newsletter (we're currently at 4500+ subscribers for the newsletter and 71,500+ followers on LinkedIn, so you can easily reach a wide base of readers).
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Take care of yourself and have a wonderful weekend!
Colleen
