Dec. 11, 2014; Posted by Bob Weinstein
You’d think older workers would have their job-hunting act down pat. Not so. Significant numbers are job-searching the same way they did 20 years ago. It’s only within the past two to three years, and after repeated rejections, have they begun to take advantage of the smorgasbord of social-networking tools available. Prior to that, they were still relying on online bulletin boards.
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Biggest blunder: Selling old experience
Most older workers make the all-too-common mistake of selling old experience. Seniors don’t have a monopoly on this faux pas.

<strong>It’s made by most job hunters. The difference is that it’s more apparent with candidates who’ve accrued more than 30 years of experience in a field.

Common sense says that working many years in a field makes someone better at his or her job. It’s true to a certain extent. But it also depends upon the field and skill. Artisans and crafts workers – carpenters, plumbers, builders, furniture makers and designers – get better at their crafts over time.

But professionals working in fields that require continuing education – technology, engineering, scientific and healthcare – need more than on-the-job experience to excel in their fields. They also need continuing-education updates, which means finding time to self-train by attending seminars, conferences and trade shows, and taking college courses.

In short, they must do whatever is necessary to stay on top of their fields. That’s the only way to ensure employment. Even then, they’re still at the mercy of a fickle, discriminating and subtly deceptive workplace.

Career pundits are always preaching the importance of “lifelong learning.” They’re right. To a greater or lesser extent, it’s critical in all careers.

Many baby boomers, however, smugly disregard the notion of lifelong learning, naively assuming that their knowledge of their fields and decades of experience are all they need to get and hold jobs. They’re fast discovering that they’re wrong.
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The times they are a-changin’
Computer and software companies’ 30-something CIOs don’t want to hear about the depth and breadth of baby boomers’ programming expertise and their knowledge of COBOL, C++ and other languages that were hot 20 years ago. They want proof that they can adapt to new technologies (Agile, for example). They don’t want to hear aging techies ramble on about the elegant code they used to create and their accomplishments at a defunct dot-com company. They want visionary job candidates who can talk about innovative ideas that could lead to groundbreaking products.
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Get over yourself – please!
How can my generation – or any generation, for that matter – presume to think that two- and three-year-old job accomplishments are relevant in a new workplace? Look at what’s happened to the world over the past four decades. By the 1970s, the world was radically changing every decade. Twenty years later, major changes were taking place every two years. Today, they’re happening every year.
There’s no better proof of the accelerated speed of change than the unprecedented growth of the Internet. In December 1995, 16 million people were using the Internet, 0.4% of the world population. By the summer of 2011, the number had catapulted to 2,110 millions (2.11 billion), 30.4% of the world population. Media guru Marshall McLuhan’s vision of a global village has become a reality.
Do you think the wheels of progress will abruptly grind to a halt so that the slowpokes and procrastinators can catch up?

Only in our fantasies. Remain behind, blaming everyone but ourselves, and we’ll go to our graves another pissed-off human being who felt the world owed him a living. We’ll be remembered not for our achievements and good works, but as disgruntled curmudgeons.

There is sanctity in death. Count on family and friends for finding good things to say about us. But they’re only words that sound good. If we clock out as would-have-beens or could-have-beens, blaming everything and everyone for our failures, we’ll be remembered as failures – unfulfilled and never taking responsibility for our actions. Remember Marlon Brando’s unforgettable lines in the iconic 1954 film classic On the Waterfront: “I could’ve had class, I coulda been a contender, I could’ve been somebody.”
The importance of selling recent experience demonstrates the fierce competitiveness of the job market. This is why technology companies are always hiring, regardless of the state of the economy. They’re obsessively searching for fast-track workers with résumés gorged with applicable achievements.