Older Job Seekers Have Their Work Cut Out

The last time he was in the job market, employers wooed him at high-priced restaurants and asked him such questions as, “What do we have to do to get you on our team?”

He was 35 then, on his way up at a time when jobs were plentiful and workers could afford to be choosy.

If Barry allowed himself to think much about those days now, he’d be pulling the covers over his head with a groan instead of rising at 5 every morning to get a jump on another day of job hunting.

The Dana Point man, who prefers anonymity, lost his $70,000-a-year job in December when the marketing department he supervised for an industrial firm became a casualty of the recession.

Barry, now 60, is back in the job market for the first time in 25 years--and this time no one is picking up his tab. Twice, he has paid his own air fare to get to job interviews. And he has spent hours of uncompensated time researching and writing marketing plans to show those doing the hiring that they need him as much as he needs them.

“I feel I have to go that extra effort to stand out above everyone else,” he says. “Employers don’t want to hire people my age.”

In spite of federal and state laws that protect older workers from age discrimination, a number of Barry’s contemporaries share his belief that being over 50 is a liability in today’s job market.

Even though their “golden years” may be just around the corner, many of those who have lost jobs during this recession “hadn’t planned to retire and can’t afford to,” says Gloria Davenport, founder of the Santa Ana-based Older Workers Network.

When they start sending out resumes, many come up against “very, very subtle” signs of age discrimination, she says. They can’t prove it--and may be wrong--but they sense that employers who say ‘you’re overqualified’ often really mean ‘you’re too old.’ ”

Mardi Spalding of Mission Viejo just turned 70, and she’s been looking for a job as a receptionist since November because she can’t get by on her retirement income. She says she has been told she’s “overqualified,” but she thinks she’s been rejected because she doesn’t have a “front-office appearance.”

“Typically, that means young, well-dressed, pretty and good with the public,” she says. “I’m good with the public but I can’t compete in a young market like today’s.”

But William K. Ellermeyer, senior vice president of Lee Hecht Harrison in Irvine, says employers’ attitudes about aging are changing as the population gets older.

His firm helps find jobs for executives seeking $50,000 to $300,000 a year--many of whom are over 50.

“I don’t think age is as much a factor as it was in the ‘70s,” he says. “The key words are ‘quality’ and ‘productivity.’ Companies are more willing to hire someone who is 54 because you get an earlier return on your investment. The key thing is energy. You can find an energetic person who is 62 and someone at 40 who acts like it’s all over.”

Even if older job applicants find an employer who sees their age as an asset, they may end up having to take a big cut in salary and rank. But Davenport says many would rather do that than retire prematurely and lose their sense of purpose and usefulness.

A good number of older workers turn to Adult Careers Inc. in Irvine for leads as they search for jobs. They are guided and encouraged by an impressive role model--energetic, silver-haired Jean Pond, who, at 72, works harder than many people half her age.

Pond heads the all-volunteer staff of the nonprofit agency, which helps find jobs for workers 55 and older, and for her, the recession has meant a lot of extra work. She says the number of clients seeking jobs has swelled from 2,280 to 3,534 in the past eight months--primarily as a result of cutbacks in the aerospace, construction and retail industries.

Since Adult Careers was founded about eight years ago, the placement service has helped 1,154 older workers find jobs--mostly middle-level positions in small firms. The agency also provides counseling to help workers change course when they’ve hit a dead end in their career.

Pond contacts only employers who have expressed interest in hiring older workers, and she has connections in about 1,700 Orange County companies--evidence, she says, that “there is a market for maturity.”

She is determined to convince employers that the older people seeking jobs today are not “senior center” types whose lives are winding down, but healthy, highly motivated, reliable workers who have new ideas and learn fast.

She observes: “The scenario for our grandparents was that they retired and then they died. That was all that was expected of them. This is a different breed of older people.”

But Pond says the experience of those who have come to her after they’ve been in the job market for a while tells her she has a long way to go to eliminate stereotypes about aging.

“Every time we place someone, it’s a triumph because we’re a court of last resort,” she says.

She’s seen older people who were willing to take almost any job and, at the other extreme, those who were still in shock after a sudden layoff, too dazed to even think about updating their resumes.

One man who dropped in once and never returned admitted he hadn’t been able to tell his family he had lost his job. He had been leaving the house in a suit as usual every morning so they wouldn’t suspect something was wrong.

If he wasn’t still in shock, he may have been caught in what Carol Humple Segrave calls the “neutral zone,” the difficult stage between the initial jolt of joblessness and the start of something new. This is the time when people feel confused, depressed and “can’t get it together no matter how hard they try,” says Segrave, an Idyllwild consultant who counsels older workers and gives motivational talks.

She told the more than 100 older workers who participated in a recent conference in Irvine just what they needed to hear: “You’re not over the hill; you’re in transition. And you will find work--meaningful work.”

The conference--co-sponsored by Adult Careers, the American Assn. of Retired Persons and TTG Consultants in Idyllwild--was called “The Challenge of Job Hunting at 55 and Over.” And Segrave, who is vice president of TTG Consultants, said one of the biggest challenges older workers face is motivating themselves to challenge ageism instead of letting it depress and defeat them.

“Be a role model,” she said. “Be an old dog who absolutely can learn new tricks.”

In an interview after her talk, she said that age discrimination exists but that older workers who go into every job interview anticipating discrimination may be activating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Barry, the unemployed marketing executive, was among those in Segrave’s audience, and he enjoyed her pep talk. But he had already been going into job interviews prepared to show that his age is a bonus for the employer.

It’s a mistake, he says, for older workers to lower their sights too soon. “You should remember how good you are, how much you know.”

He has identified several emerging fields that he feels are in need of a marketing push, and--after having his resume ignored by a number of large companies--has narrowed his search to small firms so he can deal directly with decision-makers.

He does his homework, then approaches these executives with ideas that he hopes will show them he’s a man of the ‘90s though he was born in the ‘30s.

“You have to convince the employer that you have a fresh view of things and that your experience will help you find the answers--not make you inflexible,” he says.

Barry, who deliberately left his age off his resume, has been out of work for more than four months now. His wife has had to postpone her retirement, and they’ve been cashing in investments to make ends meet. He still hopes to find a place to work “where I can be worth what I’ve been worth before,” but he’d rather compromise on salary than take a job that wouldn’t be a challenge.

“What would be most frightening is to find yourself doing pedestrian work,” he says. “Working for less money (but) doing interesting things would be OK.”

George, a 63-year-old Orange County resident who prefers not to be identified, just ended 10 months of unemployment by accepting a job that pays $35,000 a year--half what he was making when he was laid off from his management position with a large construction firm.

His new job is with a small, struggling firm in the same field. He feels the company has potential, and he’s hoping to ride this opportunity back to the top.

During his job search, he found that there were far more applicants than openings and that employers were able to select an “an exquisitely precise fit” for almost any position.

If his age caused the rejections, it was never obvious. But he feels age discrimination is more evident in “what doesn’t happen than what happens. You have to find someone who wants to buy experience.”

George, who survived his jobless months by drawing on savings, says he could have scaled down his lifestyle and retired when he lost his job, but he wasn’t ready to stop working. His mother was employed until she was 85, and he has a 95-year-old aunt who is still auditing college classes. He shares their drive to stay in the mainstream as he ages.

Randy, a 61-year-old Costa Mesa resident who asked to remain anonymous, also wants to keep working as long as he can.

In the two years since his management job with a residential construction firm was phased out, he has been living off investments while trying to get back into a field that he says is dominated by young men.

With Adult Careers’ help, he was recently hired for a part-time job in the restaurant industry by an employer seeking someone who “had some maturity about the way they do things.”

Randy used to earn $55,000 a year; now he makes less than $15 an hour. But he’s philosophical about the difficulties he’s had in the job market: “It’s not really a surprise. You’re less salable because you don’t have the time to offer these people who are looking for someone to come in and stay 15 years. It’s attrition. Everybody faces the same prospect.”

Ruth Luban, a Laguna Beach psychologist who specializes in helping people through transitions, counsels older workers to look at unemployment as an impetus for positive change.

Once they get through the process of grieving that usually follows the loss of a job, they may find that they were hanging onto a position that provided security but not much satisfaction, she says.

“When they have a loss like this, they can discover creativity, entrepreneurial skills and passionate career objectives that they didn’t let themselves think about before.”