THE CAREER DOCTOR AGEISM

There are no two ways about it: from a potential employer’s perspective there are key factors working against you: (1) age and (2) perceived manageability. The effects? You may be perceived as being overly expensive, lacking in energy, not up to the minute in your thinking, or (having run your own business) as being hard to manage, direct or exploit.

Applying to total strangers when you find yourself in this situation is almost pointless. You need to very carefully examine your route of entry and look at getting past the HR department to directly address line managers who may have heard of you by reputation. You will need to raise your game with your network and make sure that your reference sites from your consulting activities are up to scratch. Professional membership and lecturing activities can also be a useful entrée. Attending seminars, conferences and training courses (perhaps being a speaker) can also bear fruit.

You are not required to include age on your CV, but if I start seeing dates back in the 1960s in your work experience section, I don’t need to be a genius to work out what decade of life you are in … It is essential that your CV be top-notch, that it highlight, and quantify, the value that you bring and that it reassure the reader that you are still learning and applying new thinking.

Your cover letter (or phone call) must likewise highlight the BENEFITS of having you – rather than some snot-nosed kid – on board. It is not easy to think this way about yourself. You should look at doing a focused 360-degree examination of yourself and canvass opinion on the highlights.

If you database all your applications since April, what are the patterns that emerge? Are you applying within a restricted geography? Are you only applying to indigenous companies or are you looking at multinationals as well? Are you only looking at permanent jobs? Perhaps you are only applying to organisations that are above a certain turnover/staffing/square footage threshold. Have you looked at public service roles? In short, are you casting your net wide enough? If you look back at the companies you have applied to, were you genuinely excited about the prospect of working there?

Bottom line – you need to apply with a very clear picture of what the reader’s concerns are. If you can’t get yourself into their headspace and understand their problems, how can you present yourself as a solution to those problems?

Rowan Manahan is MD of the career management firm Fortify Services and author of Where’s My Oasis?

Irish Independent, Jobs & Careers supplement, November 18th 2004.

If you have any job problems you would like answered by our panel of Career Doctors, please email: careerdoctor@whitespace.ie or write to Jobs & Careers, Career Doctor, Whitespace Ltd., Top Floor, Block 43B Yeats Way, Park West Business Park, Nangor Road, Dublin 12.