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Jobs for over 50s

Hi All,

Arrived at work today for the first day of the new year to find that I and eveyone else have lost their jobs. This despite record profits last year. It's a long and involved story.

I am 56. So please, ANY advice welcomed on job-seeking. I'm an Electronc Engineer and have also the parallel roles of Quality Manager and Production Manager. Quite happy to work "hands on".

My software experience is 13+ years out of date due to my employer having a great divide between hardware and software.

John/
  • Hi John


    Sorry to hear that! sad


    I'm sure you've already done it but just in case you haven't, it's worth signing up for the Job Alerts from E&T jobs  so that you're alerted to any engineering jobs that are advertised through the IET.


    Best of luck and hope you find something soon! smiley


    Lisa
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Having just lost a job (October) and aged 62 I can somewhat empathise, but here's my best advice. Send all the usual agencies your C.V. and make sure you align your C.V. to the roles that you're sent.

    Update LinkedIn. I was contacted by one of my connections telling me about an opening, which is now my new role within about 3 weeks of being given my notice.

    Consider going contract. Again this is a route that I chose but may not be right for you.

    Go to the interviews, even if it's to find out it's not the job for you, it's good practice.

    Dig out all your qualifications, you'll need to show them along with evidence of your right to work.


    Good luck

  • Hi John,


    Really sorry to hear your news - sadly not uncommon.


    I'd definitely endorse Bill's comment about LinkedIn, I've had more positive approaches through that than anything else over the past few years.


    Personally I would have thought that the Quality Manager / Production Manager roles were your best bet, good managers are always hard to find. The problem of course is that companies are always tempted to appoint these roles internally so it is a case of plugging away until you happen to talk to the right company at just the right time.


    Make sure you emphasise your general experience, not that you are an expert in your past employer's systems - a mistake I've seen many applicants in your position make. And particularly emphasise anything you did to improve your past employers systems - that will be what employers will be looking for from you, someone who can come in and improve their business.  Show that you understand why you would aim to make these improvements - that you understand that it's all about the bottom line.


    Learn as much as you can about Lean!!!! If I was appointing a Quality Manager or Production Manager (and in the fairly recent past in my previous career I have recruited for both those roles) I would want someone who could teach me and everyone else on the site about Lean. Also for an engineering role that's a saleable commodity.


    Don't get hung up on the redundancy issue, everyone in the industry knows that companies / divisions close and staff get made redundant all the time. There's no stigma to it - unless those made redundant get bitter. It's really important to accept it happens, and time for a new start.


    Again I'd absolutely endorse Bill's comment about going to every interview (and, before that, responding to every potential role) that you can. If you don't get through then that wasn't the right job for you, but you can pick up what works and what doesn't - which of your skills seem to raise interest and which don't.


    And the hardest thing...you must NEVER appear desperate to get a job. In every conversation and every interview you need to find a "hook" where you can show how interested you are in working for that particular company in that particular role, and how by working there you will be able to use your skills and experience will help make that the best and most profitable company you can. It must appear that even if you were still in full time employment you'd still want that job. The reason this is so important is that recruiting managers will always have a concern that a desperate person will say anything to get a job, but may not follow it through when they are in it. Where as someone who comes across as genuinely passionate about the role will make a huge effort to deliver if they get it.


    As a last resort, if sadly you do find yourself in financial hardship for a while, don't forget IET Connect https://www.ietconnect.org/ But equally, many of us have found that redundancy is actually the first step to a new and much more satisfying career.


    Good luck!


    Andy
  • Another thought...


    You haven't said whether you are CEng / IEng, if not this might (if you can afford it) be the time to go for it. Anyway, just pulling together the application and discussing it with a PRA doesn't cost you anything.
    1. It will look good on your CV as a recent "third party" endorsement of your skills, experience and underlying knowledge and understanding

    • Working through this process (particularly if you use a PRA) will help you look realistically at your skills and experience, and is likely to help you improve the way your CV looks to other companies. The professional registration process is all about selling yourself in a realistic and honest but positive way.

    • If it takes some time to find a role it's a really good partial answer to the inevitable interview question "what have you been doing since you were made redundant?"


    Cheers,


    Andy
  • And another thought (better get back to work after this)...take free online courses while you have the time. For example, look at Future Learn www.futurelearn.com who have a huge range of business, management and engineering courses (I've no connection with them, I just like their courses, many other suppliers are available). Don't try claiming on your CV or at interview that these have taught you anything, but what they will do is make sure you can use and understand all the right terms, and can confidently say things in the form "Do you find xxx is important in your business?" - and respond sensibly when the response is "Why do you think it might be?" 


    Cheers,


    Andy
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    As Andy mentioned in his first response, don't get hung-up on being made redundant, I seem to recall a statistic that 3 times is the average across a person's working life. Getting made redundant can be the first step on a new "adventure". My first time I left the tools behind and started into design, next time I stopped being "the client" and I started working for a Consultancy. This time I've started my own business and so far so good.


    "But equally, many of us have found that redundancy is actually the first step to a new and much more satisfying career." I'd say definitely!

  • One other thing that hasn't been mentioned which you may consider is signing up to an agency. After my most recent redundancy a couple of years ago at age 56 (only two in 40+ years isn't bad) I tried a couple of applications and then contacted an agency that had been sending me CVs when I was recruiting a couple of years previously. On the plus side to this, they have their ear to the ground and are aware of all the vacancies being advertised, but on the minus side, they will not tailor your CV to the post but send it in "as is" (and also on the minus side, many employers will choose first from non-agency applicants due to the cost implications). I have to admit it didn't do me any good in that at about the same time I applied for a job from an IET advert which turned out to be an ideal match - just the sort of work I wanted and I was just the sort of person they were looking for. However the agency did find a possible opening which I had as a backstop.

    Everything else said above by Lisa, Bill and Andy is excellent advice, but in addition to (or rather amplification of) Andy's comments about the interview I would also say "be honest and be yourself". Don't try to give the answers you think they want to hear, give your honest answers/opinion. Most potential employers will value this, and can often tell when someone is not being completely candid, but also the ones that don't are often the ones you would regret working for.

    Very best wishes with your job searches,

    Alasdair

  • Andy Millar:


    As a last resort, if sadly you do find yourself in financial hardship for a while, don't forget IET Connect https://www.ietconnect.org/ But equally, many of us have found that redundancy is actually the first step to a new and much more satisfying career.



    Yes absolutely get in touch with IET Connect to discuss what they can do to help. Many members forget about the benefits of IET Connect!


    I seem to recall a statistic that 3 times is the average across a person's working life.





    So far I've been made redundant twice in my working life. The first time was when I was 23 when the photographic company I worked for decided to cut back on their satellite 'mini-labs' around the country. We only found out via a member of staff in our host store who offered her condolences on our redundancy after hearing about it in her team meeting on that Thursday morning. This resulted in a very hasty phone call to our Head Office to ask what was going on and then a visit that lunchtime from a rather sheepish Area Manager who told us that actually, the plan was to visit us that Friday afternoon to tell us that we were no longer needed and not to come back on Monday! angry Strangely enough a chat with a friend that lunchtime resulted in the opportunity of an interview that afternoon (which my manager at the time was happy for me to skip off work for as he was a rather good sort) which led to me being offered the job during the interview with a start date of the following Monday! wink 


    The second time was four years later when my employer was looking to move operations to Spain and make around 200 of us redundant. This time I was poached by one of my clients and then got into a bit of trouble with my previous employer for poaching some of my colleagues to come work with me too.... devil.  My advice to them was, what is the point of hanging around until the end for a pitiful redundancy payment when, depending how long it takes you to find another role afterwards, that money may not last very long! 



  • Hi John


    I'm really sorry to hear about that. Not so much as advice as what I did. I got made redundant when the firm I worked for went under. I went contracting  - set up my own Ltd company. I'm 55 and we still have a mortgage so it's not all beer and skittles yet, but we will get there. The hardest thing is dismantling my mindset of having a "permanent job with a respectable firm". But, I'm getting over that as well.


    Having set up a Ltd company. I then spent a bit of time working with a CV consultant to get my CV down to 2 pages and making it clear that I was selling a few skills, and that message was as sharp as I could make it  - no frills. In fact, as daft as this might sound, the first twenty years of my graduate working life are just down as "Early Career Summary" with firm, dates, job title. That's it, no detail! (and to be honest, I used the fact that I'm fortunate to be CEng as a sort of shorthand).


    I then registered with a couple of contractor agencies and badgered them 'till I landed my 1st contract.


    So if it that helps then great. 


    All the best


    David

  • David Leng:

     In fact, as daft as this might sound, the first twenty years of my graduate working life are just down as "Early Career Summary" with firm, dates, job title. That's it, no detail! 




    Absolutely, much the same for me:1978 (when I started my undergraduate apprenticeship) to 1999 are very brief indeed, and 1999-2005 only has slightly more because that's when my career started turning in the direction it ended up. There wants to be enough there to show a logical story, but it's really the last (say) five years that are the most interesting for showing what value you can add today.