Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2012. The figures it gives without a source (more than 37% of the unemployed in Madrid were over 45, and the average job search for over-45s was about one year) are from 2012.
Impossible. No. Difficult.
In Madrid alone, more than 37% of the unemployed are over 45. Rejected for their age and forgotten for their experience. A young employee has more talent and more recent training than a veteran, and costs the company less. They know nothing about experience or the culture of the company they work for, but that counts for little.
That is why looking for a job at 45 is complicated, and it gets harder as the dreaded age creeps up, although it isn’t impossible. The wait between starting to look for work and finding it is estimated at about a year for candidates over 45. At 55, however, it grows steadily longer and people start to be classed as long-term unemployed.
The changes I need to make
In this situation, there are a lot of changes to make if you want to find work after 60. To begin with, your salary is going to be lower. You are used to pay boosted by years of seniority, and the new job will pay considerably less.
You have plenty of very good experience in your trade, but it limits you to working at the thing you’re “so good” at and leaves you less able to do other kinds of work. Your academic training has dated and needs refreshing.
Your attitude to change must be positive and realistic. Nothing will be the same as in your previous jobs, and you’ll have to adapt to new ways of working to be as productive as possible for the company. New colleagues and new rules.
Use your network of contacts to find possible job openings, and lower your expectations. You are not going to run a company, you probably won’t find work in your previous line either, and the jobs will always be a step down from the ones you had before, but seek and you shall find.
Stay lively, motivated, hopeful and active. Your professional skills will improve, and so will your spirits when you face a job interview, where you need to convey drive, enthusiasm and vitality: don’t let your age intimidate you, let your eagerness do the talking.
The success story of Paco and Goyo
Both were long-term unemployed, the first aged 62 and the second 60. After a year of looking for work, today they are medical sales reps.
They were turned down everywhere because of their age, they had come to feel useless and their experience seemed worthless. Through a medical website, however, they were given a second chance as sales reps. They took a pay cut, but they were no longer written off as useless old-timers.
Featured image: Palmer, Alfred T., photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
