Seniors

If you'd worked in some sort of highly skilled, narrowly focused career and lost that job for any reason whatsoever, it seems to be very difficult to get another job. Other areas, especially if you have basic computer skills and you're not looking for a high salary, are much better.

Ten years ago I found myself at age 60 needing to get back into the workforce that I'd been out of for a long time while raising children. Actually, I should go back about four years prior and mention I got a paralegal certificate from my local junior college, then had two part time paralegal jobs. It was after that my marriage came to an end.

I moved to another part of the country, got fired from the first two jobs I got, which was pretty devastating as I'd never before been fired. By then it was Christmas 2008 and between the time of year and that recession, getting work was almost impossible. I was working with three different placement agencies, calling them every week, and at one point was told that if I didn't have bookkeeping or accounting skills (I didn't) there was simply nothing out there.

Finally I was able to get hired at the local hospital doing outpatient registration. I did that, and then worked the information desk until I quit work altogether at age 65.

Well not quite altogether. A year or so later I saw an ad for a partime job, a clerical/administrative thing, at a local company. So I updated my resume and went in. They wanted to hire me on the spot. Unfortunately, their idea of part time was 30 hours a week, my idea was 20. So they asked if I'd consider doing some temp work for them in the future, and I said yes. Two different times they had me in, and it was a good experience. Other than having to be at work at 8am, since I'm not a morning person.

I do want to stress that I never had a real career, don't have a bachelor's degree which has certainly limited my employment possibilities. But contrary to the popular perception that no one every hires anyone over some arbitrary age, that's simply not true. Although I recognize that if you can't get the job you want and are trained for, it's certainly seems that way.