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The Forum > Article Comments > Older job hunters and the creation of uselessness > Comments

Older job hunters and the creation of uselessness : Comments

By Malcolm King, published 28/8/2008

The trials of older Australians looking for work is a story of age prejudice and deception at a time when the nation needs their brains most.

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There is discrimination against older workers for a variety of reasons

1. superannuation is still predominantly employer based
- so that taking on an older worker is going to cost your existing workers
- it pays the employer super fund to retrench older workers

2. many job agencies "head hunters" use good looking young sales people to recruit and place staff. The recruiter doesn't know the business, doesn't understand the skill sets required to do the job, and doesn't understand the experience of the candidate. Headhunters will store your resume on their database and update it once a year, so it has to be tailored to the job you want them to represent you for. Never provide the 15 page gory detail resume - head hunters are ILLITERATE

3. Given 2 above, older job hunters should look at their skills and write a resume to fit one job description, only including the last 5 years of experience relevant to that position and place it with one agency.
Look at another job description you could fill and write a resume for that position and place with another agency. A resume should be 3 pages max.

4. Given 2 above, contact every one you know tell them about your latest exotic holiday and invite them out for coffee.

5. you could try volunteering, both to weasel your way into an organisation but also to polish the resume. Don't volunteer for any worthwhile activity that doesn't directly translate to a tradeable job skill.

I am very angry at the government concern about increasing the workforce participation rate [actually by a very small amount], its inability to compile meaningful employment statistics and its refusal to overhaul the superannuation contribution system to make older workers less vulnerable to unemployment.
Posted by billie, Friday, 29 August 2008 1:28:55 PM
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There is a tendency for the workforce youngsters to do the detailed work and the older folk to manage. The assumption is that youngsters do the detailed technical work and the elders manage. This has its basis in historic precedent when the youngsters were stronger and the elders had the experience to avoid dangerous situations as well as reduced strength.

Most Australians no longer do hard physical labour so these considerations are no longer relevant.

In IT the youngsters usually know the detail and their elders don't, but on legacy systems there is no reason to stop 55+ year old Australians writing Cobol code instead of importing Indian and Israeli programmers. Ozandy I can't see why your organisation doesn't hire project managers with PMI education plus experience. Perhaps your management is more comfortable dealing with their mates who do things the way they have always been done rather than running a professional IT department. Perhaps your management is terrified of older workers who can't be coerced into working 36 hours straight to cover for management ineptitude. Or workers who roll their eyes at the latest silly suggestion from the young, inexperienced and uneducated manager who specialises in sucking up to the boss
Posted by billie, Friday, 29 August 2008 1:43:53 PM
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For the life of me, I can't understand why anybody would want to be a wage slave for any longer than they have to. Life is too short, and there's so much to do in the world.

I'm in my early 50s and semi-retired. We have our own small business that pays the bills, some investments and we own our own house. We owe nobody anything, so what would be the point of wasting what remains of our healthy lives working for somebody else?

Personally, I'd rather go fishing :)
Posted by CJ Morgan, Friday, 29 August 2008 2:01:06 PM
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CJMorgan,
you're very fortunate. Were you a public servant before you started a hobby business ?
Sarcasm aside, most people in small business are battling from dawn till dusk to satisfy the taxman's hunger to take from those who need to give to those who don't care where it comes from.
Posted by individual, Friday, 29 August 2008 7:17:06 PM
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This is a very interesting topic however it really depends on the industry for witch older people are seeking work in.

As the owner of two retail butchery outlets I can tell you that I will pick a butcher over 50 in preference to a younger one every time. Why? because they have done the hard yards and learned the hard way, don't have this perception that the world owes me a living and have skills that are very hard to gather these days due to the changes in industry training over the past decade or so.
Of my last 5 employees, 3 of them have been 50+

Electricians are similar. Modern day sparky's are great at replacing new for old but when it comes to re-wiring or fixing something they just don't cut the mustard. Older sparky's are in more demand than ever before due to their broad knowledge and skill levels.

Another problem is that in the modern day workforce you are judged by the paper you carry rather than the skills you posses. What I mean is that there are many older folk with great industry skills but, because they don't hold a piece of paper that states that they are 'qualified' then they are simply overlooked in preference for a younger person that has the certification.

Back to my industry, many of our best butchers sit at home on the pension because if they work just one day per week their pension is cut. Talk about skill shortages, many of these people are highly skilled yet punnished if they dare put these skills to use.
Posted by rehctub, Saturday, 30 August 2008 5:38:50 AM
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On the same day this article appeared on Online Opinion, one of the main Dutch newspapers, Trouw, had an article on the same subject and much of the article's content was the same. The string of reactions illustrated how big the problem is and how much this has been neglected too long by the media. I wonder if we are dealing with an international - Western - problem here.

The problem described in the article is much bigger than generally acknowledged and it would be a good thing if there would be more media attention.

After I arrived in Australia, nearly six years ago (Australian partner, that's why), I thought it wouldn't be too much of a problem to find a job. University degree, multilingual. In the end I guess I may call myself lucky that I found a job three months after I started applying through agencies. Some arrogant little Gen Y brats at recruitment agencies treated over-40's me as if I had little more than one brain cell, this mainly because I wasn't aware of some computer basics you learn in a day, simply because I had never had to use them.

When I was made redundant two years ago the whole thing started again. The most frightening thing is that your feelings of self-esteem go down the drain if this process takes too long, and I realised how little most outsiders are aware of this fact.

I have felt desperate at times, but through a lucky combination of having the right people believe in me - including recruitment agencies that were able to really assess my potential -, keeping my eyes open for all options within an organisation and being at the right place at the right time, I ended up in a great job and I am doing what I've always wanted to do. In the end things may work out, but only 'may'. People shouldn't be desperate, but it definitely takes some determination.

And again: there should be more - much more - media attention for this problem!
Posted by KeesB, Saturday, 30 August 2008 8:51:22 AM
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