Tips for older job hunters

Older and job hunting?  6 Tips for older job hunters

We are supposed to be in the age of equal opportunities, the age at which we can claim our retirement pension is being increased and no applicant for a job or employee can be discriminated against on the grounds of age, not knowingly at least …

 Private and company pension funds have lost value or failed altogether and older people who expected to be playing with their grandchildren are having to go to work , or indeed go back to work and there is supposed to be no age discrimination.

However, the reality is quite different, with employers getting around the law by advertising their companies as 'A young and funky environment', or choosing to advertise an apprenticeship rather than a job. Even to get an interview the older job applicant needs to resort to some deception.

1.)    When preparing your resume, maybe for the first time in many years, try not to date yourself, once you get a foot in the door with an interview, you can prove yourself wrong to the doubters looking at you and wondering if you are up to the job , but  for now your aim is to secure an interview. In my case and for older job hunters our school qualifications are a giveaway, O Levels rather than GCSE's. Just list your subjects and passes rather than saying O levels. List your degree but not the date of graduation.

2.)    Rather than making a list of every job you ever had, which in many cases is a work history beginning in the 70's, just detail the past ten or maybe fifteen years at most.

3.)    Be prepared to change the way you job search as an older person and use the techniques that are proven to be more successful when you are older. Sitting at your computer firing off the same CV over and over to jobs listed online on sites such as monster and Total jobs often receives no response. A better way for older people to look for jobs is to network and let everyone you know and your online contacts via LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter know that you are looking for a job.

4.)    Don't be afraid of social media and say it’s not for you, not your thing, you really do need to get yourself known out there and network. Join forums and groups etc. that relate to your interests e.g. in my case disability forums and those related to age and employment and writing, chat and communicate,  and as you build up contacts you can then let people know that you are job hunting.

5.)    Get involved in community groups and online forums related to your interests, e.g. art and photography, writing etc. and learn from people who have turned hobbies into an income.

6.)    Another way to network is to get job hunting help at Job clubs, which can often be found at community centres and local libraries, or government job seekers schemes such as the Work Programme. It isn’t just the staff who will help you, at such job clubs and projects you are in good company with lots of people in the same position as yourself. It is moral support, and what often happens is that someone else will spot an opening they know meets your skills set, which you may not be aware of e.g., it is in a different local edition of a newspaper, or a paper you don't read, or online job board you are not aware of .People make friends and help each other, it is good to be amongst people in the same situation as yourself looking for a job …you are not alone.

627 words:

Keeping the sick and disabled in poverty is a false economy

                          photo credit http://www.morguefile.com/creative/BBoomerinDenial

So, today Chancellor George Osborne, will present his budget and show that he has found where to make the 12 billion pounds of welfare cuts that The Conservatives openly stated in the General Election campaign, they would make, but people voted for them anyway. Where will these cuts fall?  No doubt yet again on the sick and disabled in our society and working families on low incomes with children to support. We've got to have a welfare system that is fair to those who need it, but also fair to those who pay for it." Says Mr. Osborne, seeming to forget that millions who through no fault of their own end up having to claim benefits have paid for them for years in their taxes.

Being sick and or disabled is not a lifestyle choice, but rather a situation over which most of us affected have little or no control, and it is the duty of a civilised and caring society to support the most vulnerable members in it. Indeed, doing so adequately actually helps them to become less dependent on the state. Living in poverty affects both mental and physical health and leads to people being sicker than they already are, with conditions such as high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks and depression and anxiety , leaving them unfit for work for even longer and costing the health service more.

Of course, the many who commit suicide as a result of being unable to cope with the stress and strain of losing their benefits and those who die as a result of being forced to seek work are a saving on the welfare budget , a very cruel saving too, with something of Nazi Germany about it .

I am not believe me, someone  who thinks that people have the right to make a choice not to work and to live on benefits as a career when they are capable of work . However, I do believe that any government in the 21^st century has a legal obligation to be compassionate and guarantee the jobless a decent standard of living, especially if they are sick...I do not believe that David Cameron The Prime Minister, George Osborne the chancellor and Iain Duncan Smith Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, would choose to have their own families if they were vulnerable,  living in the conditions that they are quite happy to force the rest of less fortunate British people to live in .  

It is not the right of any government to set up a body such as ATOS, which overrules the opinion of a person’s GP, and declares them fit to work, resulting in their deaths due to the worry and stress and fear this brings and the physical effort involved in seeking work and working, and even brings about deaths by suicide from people just unable to cope with the loss of their only income…disability benefits. I myself have had the Job centre tell me, it is not your doctor who decides anymore if you can work or not, it is the government. I am 55, partially sighted with arthritis and a severe vitamin D deficiency. I suffer from the effects of fractures, hypertension and a heart condition but do not expect to pass my ATOS medical when it comes up, as anyone who can move a hand and press a button and hold an intelligent conversation is declared fit for work, even though in icy winter conditions I am housebound and not many employers like being told, I am sorry but I cannot come to work from October until April, which is when for several winter now in the UK, we have had icy winter conditions. This is why I work so hard towards my goal of making it as a writer on disability and age related employment issues, in order to become self-employed and self-sufficient and to write about my experiences in order to help others in the same position as myself.

True, there was a time when we put the unemployed and those who had fallen on hard times in the workhouse or the debtor’s prison, illustrated in so many Dickens novels. Dickens own father had been in the Marshalsea prison, and this and the experience of poverty reflected in his novels, but just as we don't really still expect to see buses pulled by horses , or watch TV in black and white, we have moved on since the days of the Marshalsea...or we are supposed to have done so . 

I have long come to the conclusion that if a G P with knowledge of your medical conditions and the effect they have on your daily life, including fluctuations in your condition declares as mine has that you are not fit for work, or/and after realistic consideration of your actual employment chances, you are still unemployed, but prepared to look for work, then benefits should actually be paid at a higher rate than they are.

  My reasons for coming to this conclusion are that having the stress and strain of unpaid bills and debt and being unable to afford food and heat for your home actually ends up making a person less able to seek work due to the knock on effect on physical and mental health. This results in people being less employable and costs the health service more, also the legal aid services, what little free legal aid is still available, as they struggle to help the millions of people trying to deal with things such as debt and the loss of their homes. It is not at all unusual for credit reference checks to be carried out when seeking work and certainly when trying to find a home to rent, and people with damaged credit ratings as a result of debt are less likely to get jobs and find accommodation than those without.

It is very difficult indeed to be able to concentrate on what the Job centre and Department of Work and Pensions demand of you if you are claiming benefits, especially Job seekers allowance which many sick and disabled people are now forced to claim, and to treat looking for work as a full time job in itself, if you are constantly going backwards and forwards to advice centres and court appointments about your debts and struggling to keep or even find a home. A better and in the long term cheaper way to pay benefits may be  that for a strictly limited time e.g. a year , those who are capable of work but who lose their job either because of redundancy or because they are no longer physically fit to do that job but could do something less physically stressful are paid the same in benefits as their job paid, up to a certain limit, not executive salary level perhaps, but in a proportion pro rata to their previous salary , that enables them to still pay such vital expenses as the mortgage . This would prevent the physical and mental stress and strain of the sudden huge drop in income from a salary to benefit and the resulting debt issues that can arise with the resulting effects on health and would leave people in a stronger more stable position to concentrate on looking for a job or indeed setting themselves up as self-employed.

The evidence that has brought me to this conclusion is that the theory put forward by the government that cutting benefits and forcing people to live in poverty encourages them to get a job does not work and can be counterproductive that it can even hinder the chances of that happening.

  The obvious knock on effect of living on the breadline, and for many living well below it,  is debt problems with unpaid bills , this leads to court cases , requiring legal help, advice and representation. This demand on the country's legal aid budget has resulted in savage cuts leaving very vulnerable people without help and advice for serious matters such as benefit appeals, debt often involving bailiffs and the threat of prison and repossession of property resulting in homelessness.

One of the biggest effects of being forced to exist on an income well below your even basic needs is being unable to finance your rent or mortgage...when I did a course around supported housing and vulnerable tenancies I learned to understand that there are many definitions of 'hidden homelessness' including being unable to actually afford the home you live in, Again, this results in huge demands on what increasingly limited legal help is available, while people in this position try to cope with the mounting debts. What no government including Labour, who in fact were the government who introduced ATOS assessments for those on incapacity benefit has recognised (or admitted) is that to force people to live in poverty actually holds up their chances of obtaining work rather than helping it....

People of no fixed abode, perhaps sleeping on friends sofas or on the streets, do not appeal to employers and you can be so busy trying to sort out your debt, financial and housing issues or jumping desperately at every get rich quick scheme that you miss the deadline for many job opportunities., then people in this position go to the jobcentre to sign on and get told that their benefit is being sanctioned because they have not applied for enough jobs.

Labour as I am, I increasingly wonder if another kinder less brutal way to cut the benefit budget if the government insist, and it seems indeed they do and it does seem we are powerless to stop the cuts falling on the most vulnerable, could be to have all employers just in the way many now offer pension schemes, also to offer and make membership compulsory of an unemployment benefit scheme, which pays should the job have to end due to redundancy or the health of the employee. Also, compulsory membership of an unemployment insurance scheme could be part of the requirements of everyone to take up on beginning their first job. Of course, many would remind me that we already pay for unemployment benefit through income tax, but this does not seem to have been enough to protect us…

During the election campaign, all parties banged on about helping hard working families, we hear a lot about how at least some benefits and provision for pensioners remains and will remain protected, however, poverty for working-age adults continues to rise, especially of course for the unemployed and the sick and disabled, with those who live alone without the benefits of family allowance being hardest hit. Benefits are way too low, and people on low incomes experience higher inflation due to the costs of basic essentials such as food and energy costs rising on an already limited income …The stress and strain of this further affects mental and physical health , ending up costing even more to the health and legal services of the nation .

Valerie Hedges

Just a thought ...I am against trying to clear the deficit by forcing sick people to work and killing them in the process

Ditto :)
Posted by If Everyone Cares on Monday, 6 July 2015

The things that I believe in

            With thanks and credit to Marc Stitzer and Rhonda Partin-Sharp for photograph

My values and passions:

Last week I wrote an article about living a better life, being a better you while you are job hunting or trying to start a business. The article focused on such things as identifying your values and knowing your passions and developing these things to maintain your confidence and help you to get work.

When writing a blog and so communicating regularly with your readers online, it is good to let them see and learn something about your personality and character, what is it that drives you and inspires your writing.

I was inspired to write my blog by the experiences and discoveries I have had and do have as an older person with disabilities trying to make a career as a writer, something I am good at, especially on a subject that as this does affects me personally, as I try to make an income successfully from home that will enable me to get out of the need to claim benefits with the constant pressure and worry of the government cuts and their effect. I found myself thinking that my knowledge and experiences could benefit the millions of others in the same position as myself and I decided to write a blog.

Not so long ago, in a Facebook group that I admin, we had a day of sharing with each other the things that inspire, prompt and motivate us to thought and action, and seeing that many of them are relevant to my blog, I decided to give you my readers an insight into some of the issues that inspire me to action. 

 1.)    I am for respect and equality of access to services for everyone as long as who and what they are does not harm others by criminal violence and terrorism. I am for gay people and Muslims and for everybody even if I don’t actually want to be gay or Muslim myself or encourage it …I don’t have to pair them all up and find them friends and go and join them but I do have to respect them as people and I do NOT have a duty or right to convert them.

  2.)    I am for fair government that treats the genuine poor and sick and disabled with compassion and fair play and helps them to have what they need in the way of resources so that they can then access things to help them be more independent. You cannot go to an employment training scheme for the disabled, even if the Jobcentre is forcing you to do so at peril of losing your benefit if you do not,  if you have no benefits and cannot afford the transport to go there because you need your last little bit of money for food. I am for a government that rather than force the sick and disabled to risk their lives and quite possibly as many have, die due to the stress of looking for work or attending workfare schemes, recognises that the sick and disabled do have extra living expenses and need help, not have their benefits cut or removed altogether to force them to work. I am at home for most, often all of the day and I know that this adds to the expense of energy bills and there are no free lunches like I had when I was working. Energy costs are higher as those on a limited income due to being on benefits often end up being forced on to pre- pay meters, the most expensive form of paying for energy consumption.

  3 .)    I am for access to legal services for all…not just for who can afford to pay the best lawyer or pay one at all!! Everyone is entitled to access to legal representation, there should not be situations where people cannot appeal a loss of disability benefits because they can no longer get legal aid for it and they cannot afford a solicitor, so they end up being forced on to Job seekers allowance and die in the process of attending workfare schemes or due to the stress of job hunting. 

Victims of domestic violence as I was should not be told as happened to me, that as I was on legal aid, my abusive ex would be allowed to apply for a divorce and would be granted it as he could pay and I was legally funded. I was told by my solicitor that the opinion of the court would be that as the marriage had failed in any event, and I was legally funded but he was paying a solicitor , he would be the one granted the divorce. In effect all my solicitor could do was act as a postman for my husband’s communications from his solicitor. Abusive partners should not be able to buy innocence and as my divorce papers do, make the abused partner the guilty one.

  4 .)    I am for access to effective medical care and treatments for ALL, Not just if you can afford it, if you have the right medical insurance or if you live in a health authority area where the cure or treatment you need is funded rather than one where it isn’t…like what happens in my country , it’s not on that you can’t have a treatment  for your cancer or blindness or heart condition or Multiple Sclerosis  but someone in the next town can, or that indeed you can have it because you can afford to buy it but someone down the street cannot have that chance because they cannot pay for it .

  5.)    I am for education opportunities for every child and person such as they are able to benefit from them according to their ability and interest, getting a degree should not be the privilege of the rich.  Continued education is not right for everyone, I am not advocating that everyone no matter what they want to study even if it has little or no practical use should be allowed to study at the expense of the state. Some people are just not cut out for an academic education and this is why education systems such a technical and comprehensive schools came into being, to give appropriate opportunities to every child. However, The UK is now seeing a return to what affected my education chances as a teenager in the 1970’s, bright children who would have benefited and advanced from an academic education and a degree are having to leave school and get a job way beneath their capabilities and aspirations, because their parents cannot afford to keep them or indeed are unwilling to put pressure on themselves by trying to do so and need them to be financially self-supporting.

Also, education should not be seen as the prerogative of the young and that it is wasted on older people. If, as indeed is happening, people are being told they must work way past  their expected retirement age , but they lose their job or are physically unable to continue in their field as they age , then they in my opinion have a right to free education and training for work that they can do . However, many local authorities are making adult education one of the first budgets that they cut as central government cuts their budgets and the money paid to them to provide services. A  degree in Sociology  that I was unable to study for as a teenager, would go a long way to helping my confidence and open doors,   as I hopefully  develop a writing career in the field that I want to break into, disability and age related employment issues ,  however, while I began a BA with the open university , I was unable to take advantage of free fee transitional arrangements due to personal issues and when I was ready to do my next module , free study for those on benefits was no longer available and I cannot afford to risk losing my disability benefit by having to apply for a student loan in order to continue to study , as is now the procedure . I also doubt that I would be granted a student loan as certainly at present there is no sign of my paid income ever being enough to pay it back.

  6.)    I am for the sick, the disabled, children and the elderly and for those who are carers, I do not see why the lady who began the organisation in my borough for carers should say to me, Valerie, there is a world of difference in being a carer on a low income at our end of the borough and being a carer who can afford to pay for whatever is needed and not freely provided, living at the other end, the wealthy end of our borough.   I am for helping those who need and deserve it, because helping them helps them to help themselves and not only themselves ...but others too as I have discovered on my journey and while writing this blog to help others in the same position as myself. 

      Valerie Hedges