Yabby
Not everybody can be self-employed but I take your point. Strangely I have been researching some options along those lines but will take up a short-term casual role shortly which will keep me out of trouble in the meantime.

There are a lot of good business courses and mentoring programs around that weren't there 20 years ago.

Pelican, just remember Jessica Watson, you can do anything! :)

Carter,

At 39, between working at a Bank, where I was the senior manager of a $40 billion portfolio (twice the size od George Soros at the time) and having sign-off on a $14 million advertising budget and becoming an academic, job hunting with post-graduate qualifications and several commerical and university awards, I applied for a position with a building society, requiring visits to their branches to basically check-out posters and importantly (according to the interview panel) ensure the mobiles hanging from the ceilings were okay. I was deemed unqualified. I suspect, even today, yeards later, my PhD would not carry suffient weight.

I totally agree (I think I was the example of the APS 'Scribe'). Since completing my last project-based position in April 2007 (a position I did not apply for but was asked to do), I have been unable to find work. The result for me has been cataclysmic, as I have now lost my house. The work I am best qualified for is policy-research and have heaps experience at high levels in the public and private sectors, incl overseas work for the UNDP. I am currently looking for the temp positions in the APS which pop up constantly as people go on extended leave etc.

I am not seeking positions at or even near my former level - preferring jobs I can 'walk into, undertake and leave' - without supervision hassles and staying well away from 'office politics': I am generally seeking APS 4 to 6 positions. On the 'rare' occasion I receive any acknowledgment of my application, I usually get the 'standard "Dear John"' saying that I did not meet the standard. This was a call for people to form a pool for possible APS 4 to 6 jobs. (Always one to challenge humbug, I relied saying: 'Thanks for that, I did not think there were so many ex senior APS officers looking for APS jobs’ ..... response? Silence.) I have been told by one of Canberra's 'head hunters' that he considers me highly capable and has submitted my name for ‘dozens of jobs’ but the response was always a blank ‘no’. I agree that young people should not be permitted to vet and interview staff ….

The rules which were introduced some 20 years ago for women, when it was assumed that men could not be trusted to hire women, viz, that women’s applications had to be read by women and at least one woman must sit on any interview panel where women were applicants, should be applied to ‘age over 50 or 55’.

Bob9000,

Younger people are often better networked and have friends in different compaies across the same industry. I know the example of a (then) thirty year old, who was changing jobs between two Finance Companies. He was given the draft job application before the position was advertised, by a insider friend. He was told "cross-out what you haven't done and add-in any thing you feel you should".

in 1994 my brother in Quebec lost his middle managerial with an engineering firm, told he was just too old, his age then: 45! After nearly losing his house and his children missing out on uni, he finally got the job of his dreams: working at home from his garage with his own tools, working on orders for individuals and companies; he turned what was a wrenching traumatic experience into an opportunity to find his true value.

For myself, I'm retired and living the life of reilly here in northern Mindanao, but when I applied to be a blood donor volunteer with the Red
Cross, I was told the cut-off age is 60, so I missed out by 5 years! (In Oz, I've heard of donors in their 80s!)

I applied to be a reader at my local church but was initially rejected because I was - you guessed it, too old! Cut off age was 55, but I appealed to the parish priest and he allowed me in, as an exception. But their life expectancy for men here is 69, so I think they're wondering when I'll be dropping off the perch...

Ageism has been around for a while, but as I get older, I find the elderly are a damn sight more interesting conversationalists, wheras when I was younger I used to wish they'd hurry up and stop their gasbagging! How things have changed! But I enjoy old age, and would only go back to the work force if I really had to, which is not anytime soon.