9 Smart Ways to Age-Proof Your Job Search

Worried your age is playing villain in your job search?

Lemme tell about Jayme.

She joined my Job Search Coaching Program when she was 74. Got a job with Verizon by beating out literally 10s of thousands of people. She says so right here in the over 50 section (but I’m wondering if I should create an over 70 section). 🤔

Then, after five years of that, hopped back into the program (it’s simple with that lifetime access thing) and got another job at 79 years young.

If she can do it, you can do it!

Age doesn’t need to be an anchor.

I like to wear mine (almost 59, but don’t look a day over 57!) as the badge of honor it truly is.

But I know employers have biases.

So, I want you armed with the same tips Jayme used.

And I jammed them into 4 minutes because, well, no one is getting any younger. Amiright?!?!?!

I dish out 9 tips to related to how you present yourself and how you search.

I touched on sneaky-smart resume tweaks, job search tactical maneuvers, and, of course, storytelling techniques that show your wisdom and prove your value.

Gimme 4 minutes and let’s try to turn your job search worries into weapons!

If you'd like to build a great career and lead a rewarding life, check out some of these other places where I share my teachings:

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--Andy

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
jeff Walker would love to hear Andy's
take on strategies to neutralize age
perception okay there are presenta I
love this question there are pre Jeff
there are presentation
neutralizers
and there are tactical neutralizers who
gets what I'm saying get what I'm saying
okay number one presentation
neutralizers what do I mean well your

(00:22):
resume can be take your year off your
degree okay get rid of that how far back
you go
how far back you go is determined based
on what everybody in the chat how far
back you go is based on what what
markets you best for some people it's 10
years for some it's 15 for me it's 37

(00:45):
it's different for everybody however if
you have a cut line meaning it's 2025
I'm going back 20 years 2005 that's my
cut line anything below that that you
want to take off for purposes of hiding
age you do not want to eliminate jobs

(01:06):
roles companies or anything that what
repeat after me sells you best so you
can once you have a cut line that's
reverse chronological all together
cohesive nothing is missing then you say
below 2005 I'm going to cut it but Andy
there was between 2000 and 2005 there

(01:28):
was just a job and I it's not really
relevant cool leave it off but in 1998
1999 I did this great work at this bank
and it's really relevant awesome we're
going to add an additional experience
section and then you're just going to
toss that in additional experience
includes working at this awesome bank
where I did awesome stuff awesome cool
because why because it markets you best

(01:48):
okay up at the top instead of saying I
have 37 years of work experience you can
say over 15 over 20 or you can say 20
years of relevant experience whatever
the relevancy is 20 years supporting
healthcare organization staff blah blah
blah so all that is presentation
elimination then you got tactical

(02:10):
implementation okay what's tactical
implementation you go into a job search
if you're like me and you're you're
sniffing at 59
you don't target organizations that are
startups that where the CEO is 28 and
the rest of the staff are 25 there's
nothing wrong with that there's not and
God bless those young professionals who

(02:31):
are killing it that's just not for you
right so you're not going to target
those companies i want you to go and
target companies where people look like
I do they got the gray hair that he's
trying to hang on to right how's my hair
looking today you follow me when you
look at the executives when you look at
the board of directors when you do they
look like you do you think they value
your experience well from a targeting

(02:52):
standpoint don't don't target those
young startups i'm not saying you can't
target a startup but just you got to
make sure that the management team kind
of looks like you and me or whatever it
is larger companies maybe then there are
other organizations like sectorbased
where generally speaking the sector
itself doesn't mind that you have a lot

(03:14):
of years of experience nonprofits others
governmental others don't care as much
okay then there's the tactical
implementation when you get into the
interviews so when you get into the
interviews the stories well first off I
want you to do some jumping jacks and
get some energy going now you don't have
to talk as fast as I do but you need to
be talking with energy and and you need

(03:37):
to use language that has warmth and
competence i love doing this i love
learning new things i'm willing to do it
i'm I love doing that i love learning
i'm current on you got to use current
language you got to take old stories and
you got to make them with current
language and you got to do a lot of
pushing into the future why because when
you push into the future and you're

(03:58):
showing them exactly how you would
tackle something in their environment
and they see you can do it they're going
to be more apt to hire you and then then
tactically what are you going to have to
do you have to sell the hell out of
yourself because you probably cost more
but you're going to go back to my five
points goals problem solution and so on
and you're going to do that so that's a
that's a pretty complete array now I

(04:20):
went through that pretty quickly but
when all y'all my age or like Karen and
her story there's the presentation of
the age there's the targeting of the age
meaning the searching and then there's
the verbal presentation in the interview
you got to watch them all