Older Workers - The Age Advantage!

A skill is something you do well. We all have many skills that are learned from the various experiences of life: work, home and family life, hobbies, volunteer activities, and life experience.
Soft Skills are things like attitude, work ethic, customer service, or commitment.
Transferable Skills are skills that come from all facets of life and can be applied in many job, business, or life situations. Examples are the ability to organize and maintain a goods or supplies inventory-something you could do in a home pantry, a hardware store, or a production plant.

What this means for the Older Worker

You have many more skills than you give yourself credit for.
A shift in how you see and value your skills will make a big impact on the success of your job search.
Skills are learned in all areas of your life: work, home and family life, hobbies, volunteer activities and life experience. Examples: at work you may learn how to keep track of inventory or files; at home with young children you learn organization and planning; in a hobby you learn manual and design skills; as a volunteer you may learn how to run a meeting or organize a special event; life experience will give you some soft skills, patience, and an ability to see the 'big picture' (because you have a history to draw on). Many of these skills can be transferred to other jobs. Some common skills are: use of power tools, use of computers and software programs, the ability to run a backhoe safely, the ability to cut and package fish, or the ability to care for children or seniors.
It is never too late to develop new skills. Any skills that will make you a more valuable employee or give you personal satisfaction are worth learning.

Identify Your Skills

Do you have trouble identifying and giving value to your skills? If you do, you're most likely making the common mistake of taking your skills for granted. It's easy to do. Skills sometimes seem like they are just what you know how to do, or what you've done for years. You may not see the things you know how to do as skills you can sell to potential employers and may mistakenly believe that only job skills have value.

Skills are learned in every area of your life, including work, home, and all the other things you do and they all contribute to the growing collection of your skills. Skills can include manual or learned skills (like using tools or technology skills) and they can also include soft skills).. Soft skills are a range of skills that are currently highly undervalued by many Older Workers. Soft skills include things like a good attitude, creative thinking, the ability to do effective problem solving, a good work ethic, the ability to get along and work well with others.

Sell Your Skills

There's a tendency among Older Workers to think that talking about skills means you're bragging. Bragging is exaggerating, even to the point of lying. Confident, true, statements about what you do well is not bragging. Confident statements about your abilities are acceptable and necessary for effective job search.

Develop New Skills

Fears about learning new skills as an Older Worker are based on unfounded myths that you no longer have the ability to learn. You may learn differently now then you did as a younger person, but there's no evidence to suggest that your capacity for learning is less than it was. The rewards for learning new skills in terms of personal satisfaction, increased self confidence and successful employment are significant.

Things to think about

Most of us learned early on to undervalue our skills-it wasn't polite to brag about what you could do well then. Now if you don't tell an employer what skills you have and what you can do for them, they see no reason to hire you.
Not all skills are job specific. Many skills are transferable and can be used in a variety of jobs or tasks.
Having a good idea of what skills you have to offer will help you write effective résumés and cover letters. Good résumés will get you more interviews.
If you are not comfortable speaking about what you do well in a positive way, you may need some practice.
Technology skills are an asset only if they are up to date. It's worth taking the training to keep your skills current-that makes you more attractive to potential employers.

Things to do

Make a list of all the things you learned (your skills) in your first job. Now make lists of skills for every important job you had.
Make a list of all the things you learned (skills) in a hobby.
Ask a friend to make a list of your skills. Sometimes a friend will see your skills more clearly than you can. Discuss this skill list with your friend. How does it compare with the list of skills you thought you had?
Keep an ongoing list of skills you'd like to learn and look for opportunities to learn them-not all skills will need to be learned in a classroom.

Current Initiatives