Laid Off After More Than 30 Years

We find it difficult, if not impossible, to market ourselves as a desirable candidate. We're not that good an actor.

I can totally relate to that way of thinking. That said, the feedback you've gotten is that you've been a good employee and a respected colleague. If the job counselor hasn't already suggested this, it should help to list some traits you generally possess that employers value, heck need, such as responsibility, accuracy, dependability, shows good judgment, loyalty, team player, etc. You can probably be objective about those example traits and others. You don't have to act, just present the facts.

My organization hires a whole range of ages, including plenty of people in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. The clear values are that it's easier to be sure of what you're getting from references, less ramp up time, and ironically, older employees individually may stay longer, often to retirement, providing work force stability. Hiring only young people in a lot of organizations isn't desirable, for many reasons.

Thanks, Johnny-Jack. We appreciate your support. We need to make a list of the qualities that you mentioned so that we can reference them later.

Not sure if we mentioned, but we bought a green screen that we can assemble to use as a background for online meetings and interviews. It's a tool we're very familiar with from our job, so it was easy to set up. It can easily be assembled and disassembled for storage.

The career coach is way too talkative while saying only so much of real value. It's sort of like the adult voices on "Peanuts" cartoons. Wah-wah-wah. We realized that she probably does this because she gets paid by the hour.

Anyway, life goes on.

MDs

Bravo! Things like using a green screen correctly lets interviewers know you're tech savvy, even if it's a subliminal awareness. And is it possible that the career coach hasn't said that much of value to you because you're already more knowledgeable than most of her clients? That would be a good thing overall.

Since you may be a little rusty (30 years worth) on both job searching and interviewing, a long-time best seller is What Color Is Your Parachute?, but there are others. Of course, there are plenty of online web sites too and probably some that gives specific tips in our current world.

My younger sister had impressive academic credentials but couldn't get a decent job for years because she would bomb every interview. I didn't realize that until we started a small business with a third person and I saw it myself. She just froze, gave the shortest answer possible. Later she did what she always did to gain a skill, she devoured the best books on interviewing. She told me she got job offers from the next three interviews. She was still nervous, but she had now the best answers for various standard and predictable questions, ones that appeared spontaneous but were in fact rehearsed to appear spontaneous.

I've hired tons of staff over the years but even I can still be swayed by someone who has become an excellent interviewee, even if not a perfect employee. If you're not yet on LinkedIn, you might consider that. Have a few associates and colleagues linked to you. Like Facebook (ugh) for business purposes.

Thanks again, Johnny-Jack. We appreciate the additional encouragement. And you never know, perhaps other people reading may benefit also.

We've heard of What Color Is Your Parachute? -- actually, we've known of it for many years but have never read it. We've always assumed we were so unhappy having to work at all that we could never convince anyone of our desirability.

And we've been on LinkedIn for several years, despite the fact that we despise social media in general. We joined only to prepare for a situation like we're in now. And we have over 400 connections. (Mods, this isn't TMI; there are a gazillion people in LinkedIn with over 400 connections.)

We do agree that there are probably several useful websites for interviewing advice, and we'll see what we can find.

MDs

Lol no not hardly TMI, that's very vague. But thanks for being aware of privacy.

We find it difficult, if not impossible, to market ourselves as a desirable candidate. We're not that good an actor.

I saw JJs response to that quote and seriously thought I'd wrote it. The quote that is, and went back to find it wasn't us, in fact.

I am exactly that, also. Feel extremely undesirable and useless. Dreading school and trying to wrap our addled head around stuff. Ah well.

All we can do, either of us-you and I, that is- is try! Ain't got much choice.

Give it our best shots fingers crossed. And yes I'm watching this thread with great interest. I've likewise heard of the parachute book and ought to give it a read. Thank you both so much for this thread, so grateful for it, even as we wish you hadn't been in this situation.

Thanks, Snaga, for the encouragement and validation, as well as for the reassurance while wearing your mod hat.

We have another call with our career coach in a few minutes. We need to make sure that she slows the process down enough for us. We need more time for each step, at least for now.

MDs

Today's session went a lot better. There was more constructive dialogue and much less wah-wah-wah.

We think she's grasped how we need to customize the process for our own needs. And we have manageable, concrete steps for next week.

Knock on wood.

MDs

Sounds like you were able to advocate for yourself and that she heard you. I'm glad it went well.

We just wanted to wish you all the very best of luck! It sounds like a tough time but you seem really positive and 'on it' from what we've read. Good for you all!

Best of luck with how it develops.

Pastella
(and All)

Thanks, Pastella and all. We're hoping that working with the career coach will help us move forward in the best direction possible.

MDs