{"id":60276,"date":"2014-02-03T14:30:58","date_gmt":"2014-02-03T19:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=60276"},"modified":"2014-02-09T14:53:38","modified_gmt":"2014-02-09T19:53:38","slug":"you-know-youre-special-on-proving-it-on-it-on-a-resume-or-in-an-interview-whatever-your-age-may-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=60276","title":{"rendered":"You Know You\u2019re Special: on proving it on it on a resume or in an interview whatever your age may be"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Tracy Wasserman, Head Editor, INALJ Florida<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

You Know You\u2019re Special: on proving it on it on a resume or in an interview whatever your age may be<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\"Tracy<\/a>Feeling inundated with countless articles and online advice from career counseling centers and other job-hunting gurus about how to write, improve, re-write, update, modify, correct and submit resumes, and behave, sit, talk and re-act in interviews?<\/p>\n

Me, too.<\/p>\n

To me, it\u2019s like the online health\/ailment advice you can find everywhere on the web, and since your symptoms could be related to a variety of ailments <\/b>from an allergy to a major disease, the anxiety of information overload is just not worth it.\u00a0 Sure, there is good advice out there, and you can have a terrific looking resume, but at some point, you only know what\u2019s going to work to get the job when you get to the interview.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My husband spent over a year searching for a new job when he was let go from his company after 10 years as a technical publications manager, when a major search engine bought the company and starting re-vamping it. The main factor working against him finding a new job, it seemed, was his age (he\u2019s 54).<\/strong> \u00a0He could read and follow all kinds of job-hunting advice articles, but he couldn\u2019t do younger. He did everything right, had an awesome resume that generated interest and interviews, but when he got to the interviews, he found himself most times being questioned by a youngster half his age, and judging by the perceived age of the others he saw there, he would have been a dinosaur and the definite old man out.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t get any of those jobs, even though he seemed a perfect fit in terms of qualifications and experience.\u00a0 Although overt age discrimination in the workplace is a thing of the past, it is a factor when considering the best \u201cfit\u201d for a position.<\/strong>\u00a0 My husband was not asked his age in the interview, of course, and he looks younger than his years, but the years of experience reflected on his resume was one factor that gave him away (simple math on the part of the prospective employer will reveal a potential employment candidate\u2019s approximate age).<\/p>\n

Another factor to consider is a perceived skill may be in some minds a deficit. My husband prided himself on being what he called a \u201claid back\u201d manager at his company, always getting the work done on schedule without panic and undue stress.\u00a0 Unfortunately, he made the mistake of using his \u201claid back\u201d manager asset when asked about what he considered his best strength, in an interview at a company that thrives on stress and everyone running around like crazy people.\u00a0 He\u2019s pretty certain that faux pas cost him that job, even though at the time he thought the company in question would consider a calmer person good for the advertised position.\u00a0 He was wrong, and mis-read the signals.<\/p>\n

The signals are the key.\u00a0\u00a0 Every interview will be different, and it might take many interviews before you figure out how to read signals.\u00a0 You cannot have a set speech.\u00a0 What one interviewer may welcome, another one may not.\u00a0 Is it obvious to you that the company could make some changes to run better? Maybe, but maybe they don\u2019t want to hear it from you in an interview, and will consider a criticism a sign that you cannot work well with others.<\/p>\n

My husband finally found a job at an up-and-coming regional airline, where the VP who hired him is in his 60\u2019s, and has been working for the company himself for less than a year.\u00a0 The two of them hit it off right away.\u00a0 The VP was willing to take the chance that a technical publications manager in the cell phone industry could manage technical publications in the airline industry, because they got along so well in the interview.<\/p>\n

Proving your worth once you get the job is the next hurdle, but you know you can do it, because you\u2019re special.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Tracy Wasserman, Head Editor, INALJ Florida You Know You\u2019re Special: on proving it on it on a resume or in an interview whatever your age may be Feeling inundated with countless articles and online advice from career counseling centers and other job-hunting gurus about how to write, improve, re-write, update, modify, correct and submit…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[5892,69,3592,3652,216,5893],"class_list":["post-60276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-age-discrimination","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-inalj-florida","tag-interviews","tag-tracy-wasserman"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Tracy-Wasserman.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-fGc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}