Joshua, I’m 59 years old with a full-time job in Medical Ultrasound imaging. I have 32 years of experience in the field. With hospital downsizing and Medicare cutbacks, the higher-paid employees costing the most will be looked at.Your book, Job Searching With Social Media For Dummies, is very helpful and I want to follow your suggestions.
My questions are should I state my true years of experience, or would that make recruiters shy away because of age? Would my LinkedIn profile translate to my present employer that I’m unhappy?
Thank you for your time,
Ultrasound Bob
Dear Ultrasound Bob,
Good for you for seeing the writing on the wall. Not everyone has the guts to acknowledge the fact that their job is not going to last forever. When I was at Cisco in 2008, living is Las Vegas, I knew my job would go away but I didn’t do anything about it. So first, I want to applaud you and give you the chance to celebrate your own courage.
Many people I talk to have concerns about their age and years of experience, old and young. It used to be that having more years of experience was a great thing to have. These days, experience can often mean the first to go during layoffs. For recruiters, age can have many different sub-texts – though by law, there shouldn’t be.
I think there is nothing wrong with downplaying those years of experience. They are simply not the asset they once were. In fact, you’ve beat the national average for the length of a career by 6.4 times! The average American stays with a career for about 5 years. In the course of your single career, most Americans would have had 6.4 different careers.
September 06, 2012