10 Websites every baby boomer should know but probably doesn’t

May 12, 2013 by 3 Comments

websites every baby boomer should know10 Websites every baby boomer should know

There is a set of  websites every baby boomer should know to manage your career, and I am writing this post to expose you to them.

Some of these might surprise you. Let’s get started.

General

Employee Benefit Research Institute – The mission of the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) is to contribute to, to encourage, and to enhance the development of sound employee benefit programs and sound public policy through objective research and education. There is a ton of great data about retirement. They do a variety of surveys related to baby boomers ability to retire.

PBS Next Avenue – This PBS’s website dedicated to the baby boomer generation. Articles cover a full spectrum of issues and come from a variety of sources. Career Pivot contributed an article in February.

Harvard Business Review Blog – I have become a big fan of HBR. They follow a variety of trends that you must keep on top of for your career.

Let’s cover some recruiting websites every baby boomer should know.

Recruiting

ERE.net – ERE is a central gathering point for the recruiting industry. You will find lots of useful information on careers but more importantly trends in employment.

Recruiting Blogs – Recruiting Blogs is a central place where recruiters can blog on topics of their choice. There are over 14,000 recruiting blogs on this site. This is a great place to gain insight into what recruiters are thinking.

The Undercover Recruiter – The Undercover Recruiter is the #1 recruitment and career blog in the UK & Europe. Another great place to follow industry trends.

Recruiter.com – One of the largest websites for the recruiting industry. This link will take you to the Career Advice section of the website.

I believe every baby boomer should track trends in the recruiting industry.

Let’s cover some different websites every baby boomer should know.

Social

Social-Hire - This is a new and innovative career site around the new way to find a job. I particularly want to point you to the career advice section.

Linked Into Business Blog – This is a LinkedIn blog for business written by my good friend Viveka von Rosen. Viv runs the Tuesday evening Tweetchat called LinkedIn Chat. If you want to stay on top of changes in LinkedIn this is the place.

This one will surprise you!

Heidi Cohen – Heidi Cohen’s blog provides marketing related insights grounded in digital and direct marketing. Served with a creative twist, Heidi includes practical tips based on her extensive experience that readers can apply to their marketing. You need to understand online marketing tactics to market your own career!

Did I miss any websites every baby boomer should know?

Bonus

BoomerJobTips.com - Okay I am being a bit self serving. I recently acquired the BoomerJobTips.com domain which was listed in the top career sites in 2012. The previous owner took down the website for personal reasons. My plan is to make BoomerJobTips.com the premiere career information website for baby boomers and keep it pitch free. Content is curated from around the Internet and posted through out the day.

Did I miss any websites every baby boomer should know?

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Repurpose Your Career by Marc Miller and Susan Lahey

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Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Baby Boomer, Career Tagged With: ,

Over 60? Have you thought of a portfolio career?

May 5, 2013 by 2 Comments

Portfolio CareerHave you thought of a portfolio career?

If you are over 60 and will have to work well past the normal retirement age of 65, you might well consider a portfolio career.

I am currently reading the most popular book on the topic – And What Do You Do?: 10 Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career by Barrie Hopson and Katie Ledger.

They describe four types of careers:

  • Single-track career – This is what we were raised to do in the 20th century. Select a career path and stay with it until you retire.
  • Serial career – This is I have largely done. I have moved from career to career throughout my lifetime. I am on my seventh career. This is highly unusual for baby boomers but will be very common for our kids!
  • Lifestyle career – You know a mother who is raising kids and holds a part-time job. Maybe you know someone who is taking care of a family member but runs a small business on the side.
  • Portfolio career – This is a career that is all about cash flow and less about a paycheck. You develop a variety of streams of income that might include: consulting, teaching workshops, running an online business, multi-level marketing (Some are actually quite good! I could hear you snickering! I am not involved in any though.),buying and selling products on eBay, buying and selling real estate, having multiple part-time jobs,….

Who is suited for a portfolio career?

And What Do You Do?: 10 Steps to Creating a Portfolio Career by Barrie Hopson and Katie Ledger has a questionnaire. I highly recommend you take the questionnaire.

The authors say people who are best suited for a portfolio career are:

“self-starters, excellent time managers who organize their lives well, believe they’re largely in control of their own destiny, don’t like to be bossed about, have a huge need for independence, are high energy, prepared to market themselves and actually enjoy connecting. They like change and variety are not frightened to take risks, cope well with stress and pressure, feel positive about themselves, quite like having deadlines, love to learn, are not purely driven by money and are not over-anxious if they have insufficient funds at some times. They are also, assertive, can multi-task, live with ambiguity and often blend their work and free time.”

As you can imagine perfectionists need not apply!

You may not be all of these but you might need to surround yourself with people who can fill the holes. For example, if you are not good at marketing yourself then partner or trade with someone who can.

Does this sound interesting? I will continue to blog on this topic in the coming weeks.

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Repurpose Your Career by Marc Miller and Susan Lahey

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Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Portfolio Career Tagged With: , , ,

Baby Boomer do you feel left behind in your career

April 28, 2013 by 2 Comments

feel left behindDo you feel left behind in your career?

I am sure many of you feel left behind in your career by all of the changes that have occurred in the last dozen years.

I have been blogging on the issues of Baby Boomers and Long Term Unemployment for the last three weeks. If you have not read all of them this is a good time to review the series.

I was blogging on this topic in preparation for my presentation to the Central Texas Career Development Network. Here are my slides:

The room was full of career professionals with many from Texas Workforce Solutions. The staff from Texas Workforce solutions all echoed what I had long seen at many of the job clubs I speak at, many Baby Boomers still think that the world will reverse direction and they will not have to change their ways. I serve on the Board of Directors of Launch Pad Job Club and attend most of the Friday meetings.
The world of job search has changed completely. The resume is nearly dead. You need to network, network and network some more. It is all about your personal brand.
Many that I talk with feel left behind by the rapid change.
Does this sound familiar?
What changes are you willing to make today?
I suggested in a previous post that if you have been out of work for more than a year you might consider the following:
  • Broaden the geographical boundaries  of your search. Yes, you might need to move or leave a spouse behind for a while.
  • Consider downsizing and living a simpler life.
  • Reassess your skills to see what else you could do.
  • Consider starting a business, freelance work or contract positions.

You do not want to fall into what the New York Times called the Jobless Trap. The Long Term Unemployed will be not be considered for jobs in large numbers.

Are you willing to make a change so that you will not be left behind in your career?

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Check out my new book!

Repurpose Your Career by Marc Miller and Susan Lahey

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Available at Barnes and Noble

You can also download my whitepaper “Don’t Retire Even If you Can and What to do Instead – A Baby Boomer Manifesto”

Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Baby Boomer, Career, Employment, Long Term Unemployment Tagged With: , , ,

Over 50 and long term unemployed – What do you do?

March 24, 2013 by 2 Comments

Long-Term-UnemployedOver 50 and Long Term Unemployed

What do you do if you are over 50 and long term unemployed?

At six months the moments of self doubt start to creep in.

Will I ever work again?

When will I feel useful again?

When will this end?

Baby Boomers in general, but particularly men get their self identifies from their work. I remember when I worked for IBM and many would identify themselves as IBMers. It was who they were. In 1993, when many of my older colleagues were told to go retire, it killed them. They lost their identity.

What I learned from my experience at IBM was I am not what I do. My job does not define me as a person.

Is this you?

(More: Baby Boomers and the Long Term Unemployed)

Are you looking for a full time job?

My first question to you is why?

If you have been unemployed for over six months you should start considering working for yourself. If you are over 60 this is a must.

Am I saying there is age discrimination?

YES! Get over it!

We are rapidly moving to a contractor based economy. Check on the article from Business Insider 40 Percent Of Americans Will Be Freelancers By 2020.

This change will no be easy!

I know, I know you have to have full time employment for the benefits. That is a myth.
My wife and I are both in our late 50′s, and we pay about $700 per month for high deductible health insurance. My wife’s coverage comes the State of Texas High Risk Pool. A state run health plan where she cannot be rejected.
I know, I know you need group coverage. Group coverage is the most expensive kind of health insurance and if you received a W2 from last year, you will see what you employer spent. It is a lot!
What we save in one year from having to pay COBRA covers the deductible. We just have to stay out of the hospital for a year.
Start thinking seriously about working for yourself.
Keep looking for a job but consider contracting, temp work and preparing to start a business.

How are you going to find your next gig?

I sure hope you are not looking on job boards and submitting your resume.

I am working with two clients right now. Both are product managers for large high tech employers.

  • Client A is in his early 40′s and started two years ago greatly expanding his network through his professional affiliations, his religious affiliations and work. He currently has well over 1,000 LinkedIn connections.
  • Client B is in his late 50′s and when I started working with him late last year he had about 200 connections on LinkedIn. He has a very small network of people he can turn to for help. Pretty typical of most baby boomers.

Both clients have MBAs and are well respected.

Client A put out the word quietly he was looking. He is being contacted every week by recruiters. Admittedly, most of these are for jobs out of town or in an industry he does not care for. He is being contacted and had an interview this last week.

Client B is periodically being contacted, but it is pretty quiet.

The difference is client A started two years ago. Building a network takes time.

We are in a referral economy. Your network will get you your next job, contract, customer,…….

This is an area where many baby boomers struggle. As a general rule, we are pretty private. This whole thing about putting ourselves out there on social media is pretty ……. uncomfortable.

I know, I know you think this social media business will pass. It is not going away!

What are you doing about it?

My next post will be on what else you should be doing when you are long term unemployed.

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Check out my new book!

Repurpose Your Career by Marc Miller and Susan Lahey

Available on Amazon.com

Available at Barnes and Noble

You can also download my whitepaper “Don’t Retire Even If you Can and What to do Instead – A Baby Boomer Manifesto”

Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Baby Boomer, Career, Employment, Long Term Unemployment Tagged With: , ,

Advice – The Magic Word in Managing Your Career

March 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

AdviceAdvice is the Magic Word

When someone comes to you and asks for some advice, do you ever turn them down?

Probably not.

In fact, your probably take it as a compliment!

What is the best way to approach a contact for help with your career?

Ask for advice?

I use this in a larger strategy called Asking for A-I-R.

  • Advice
  • Insights
  • Recommendations

(More: The Key to a Successful Shift: Asking for Help)

Let’s say you are looking to network into one of your target companies. You get one of your contacts to make an introduction. When you reach out to the targeted individual you immediately ask can I have a few minutes of your time to ask some advice.

Might they ignore your request? Sure.

Might they simply say no? Sure.

If they refuse to help you then they are probably a jerk. In that case you do not want to talk to them anyway. Move on to the next person in your target list.

When you get some time with this individual you might ask:

  • How did you get hired at the company
  • How do you like working there
  • Can you describe the culture
  • What is the management style in general in the company
  • What is the management style of your immediate boss
  • How is hiring done – referral, posting on website, headhunters,…

If you think of any other questions please share them in the comment box below.

The step that many forget is to ask for recommendations!

  • What should I do next
  • Who do you recommend that I talk to next
  • Can you introduce me to anyone that might help me in reaching my goal

When you get a recommendation, you follow up, follow up and follow up. You keep the person making the introduction in the loop at every step!

(More: Cultivating Your Network)

The last step in this process is to always ask what can I do for you?

I often tell the story of my son, who after graduating from college in 2006 was having difficulty landing his first job. He applied with a large employer in Sacramento California. I told him to get on the Sacramento chapter website of the professional association where he belonged. I told him to e-mail all of the Sacramento officers and ask for 15 minutes on the phone to ask some advice.

Every last one of them gave him at least 30 minutes, and he got a lot of great advice. He did not get the job, but he learned that when you ask for advice…. people will respond positively.

Advice is a magic word in managing your career!

Do you ask for advice?

Do you have a mentor?

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Check out my new book!

Repurpose Your Career by Marc Miller and Susan Lahey

Available on Amazon.com

Available at Barnes and Noble

You can also download my whitepaper “Don’t Retire Even If you Can and What to do Instead – A Baby Boomer Manifesto”

Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Career, Networking Tagged With: , ,

Are you creative at work? For whom do you create?

February 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment

creativeAre you creative at work?

I am a very creative guy. I am not artistic in the least, but love to create stories that convey a message.

One of my talents is as a story teller. I have used this talent to create all kinds of curriculum that trained people around the world.

Why was I creating these stories?

My employer wanted me to create them?

Writing this blog, writing the book Repurpose Your Career – A Practical Guide for Baby Boomers, creating my webinar series (which is to launched this year) Cure for Career Insanity and other endeavors has been extremely fulfilling. What I just now realizing is this is the first time in my life where I am creating what I want to create.

Artists understand creating from the heart. I ain’t no artist!

I have always created what other people wanted me to create.

I was solving problems for other people because my employer wanted me to solve the problem.

I came up with creative solutions.

Did I enjoy it? Many times yes but not always.

Do people treat you differently when you are a creative?

My experience in the high tech world  that when you have created something that delivers real value the answer is YES.

Doors have been opening for me since the book was published but this feels different.

Doors are opening because I have created something that people find value in. From start to finish I was creating it because I wanted to create it!  No one was telling me what to create.

This has been a big epiphany for me!

Are you a creative person? For whom do you create?

Is there something that you want to create?

It took me thirty plus years to start creating what I wanted to create!

What is stopping you?

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Repurpose Your Career by Marc Miller and Susan Lahey

“If you’re deciding what to do for act two of your career, read this book.” ~ Miriam Salpeter, Keppie Careers

Available on Amazon.com

You can also download my whitepaper “Don’t Retire Even If you Can and What to do Instead – A Baby Boomer Manifesto”

Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Career Tagged With:

The Key to a Successful Career Shift: Asking for Help

February 5, 2013 by 2 Comments

Repurpose Your Career

Many people switching fields are loath to reach out to someone who already knows how to get the job done. Here’s how to ask with confidence.

My colleague was in her 20s. I was old enough to be her father. But I had switched careers in midlife to be a math teacher in an inner city school, where I could tell that she knew what she was doing. I, on the other hand, was ready to jump out the window.

So I asked her for help. Begged might be a better word. If she would give me her lesson plans, I figured, I would follow her every move, like a little puppy dog — a 6-foot-4-inch puppy with hair loss and wrinkles — until I got the hang of teaching. Voila!

Advice From a Career-Design Coach

I’ve made seven career changes, currently work as a career-design coach for other boomers and just wrote Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for Baby Boomers. My experience and research has shown me that asking for help is the biggest hurdle people in midlife face when shifting careers. But it’s also the essential first step.

(MORE: How to Start a New, More Meaningful Career)

We really struggle, however, before asking others for assistance. It’s hard to swallow your pride, forgo speeches to new, young co-workers that begin “I was doing such and such before you were born” and instead say, “I need help.”

To get the rest of the story go to the PBS Next Avenue website.

Next Avenue

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Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Career Pivot Tagged With: ,

Larry Bird, Winners, Talents and Skills

February 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Talents and Skills

Winners, Talents and Skills

I was looking for a quote about talents and skills. I found the following quote from Hall of Fame Basketball player Larry Bird:

A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals

Larry Bird

I am only a few months older than Larry Bird. We were in college at the same time. I was at basketball dude Northwestern University while he took little known Indiana State to the National Championship game his junior year.
Anyone who saw Larry standing on the sideline would say he was just an average player. In college, he was tall and some would say did not look like an athlete.

Talents

He had some real natural talents. My guess they were great vision and hands. He could see the court and teammates out of the corner of his eye. He could make the basketball twirl and spin in his subtle hands.

Skills

Larry Bird developed into a tremendous shooter and passer. Did this come naturally?  No, he worked hard at it. His talents made it seem easy. He could see things on the court that allowed him to leverage the natural skills in his hands to make great passes.

Would you call Larry Bird a winner? HECK YES!

What are your talents?

I want you to go back to childhood. What did you just love to do?

I was talking with my friend who gave me the idea for this whole series and asked her what she loved to do.

She loved to ride horses. It was the challenge of working with the horse. A horse that was big and powerful. She thoroughly enjoyed it.

Childhood was a time of innocence. We did not have work, society, and other factors telling us what we wanted or loved to do.

What were your talents in your youth?

Did you build skills to complement your talents?

If you had identified your natural talents did your build skills that complement them. For myself, the answer was no. I quickly got on the path of doing what my parents told me to do.

There is enough time in your life to develop new skills. Target them to complement your unique and individualistic talents.

Are you ready to discover your talents?

I just celebrated my second anniversary of saying goodbye to corporate America. As I prepare to do my 2012 income taxes, this will be the first time in over 40 years where I did not receive a single paycheck in a calendar year.

I am discovering my talents and focusing on developing new skills that complement my talents.

How about you? Are you ready to focus on your talents and skills to become a WINNER?

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Check out my new book!

Repurpose Your Career by Marc Miller and Susan Lahey

“If you’re deciding what to do for act two of your career, read this book.” ~ Miriam Salpeter, Keppie Careers

Available on Amazon.com

You can also download my whitepaper “Don’t Retire Even If you Can and What to do Instead – A Baby Boomer Manifesto”

Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Career, Interests Tagged With: , ,

Do you suffer from Skills Burn-Out Syndrome? (SBS)

January 29, 2013 by 5 Comments

Building SkillsDo you suffer from Skills Burn-Out Syndrome? (SBS)

You are probably going hmm… SBS. This sounds serious!

In my last post I talked about the differences between talents and skills. We acquire skills throughout our careers, usually because they are required for our jobs by our employers OR because they make us more valuable in the marketplace. Only occasionally, do we acquire skills because we want the skills.

If you have been working for more than ten years you have acquire multiple skills in that time. If you have been working for over thirty years like myself, you have acquired a whole lot more.

Some of these skills we are really good at! Many of these skills paid the mortgage, put food on the table and put our kids through college.

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Do you have skills valued in the market that you no longer want to use? Tweet this out!

Do you suffer from Skills Burn-Out Syndrome? Tweet this out! The TLA (Three Letter Acronym) is SBS.

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I am finding SBS increasing common among baby boomers.

How many unhappy lawyers do you know? There are a lot of unhappy lawyers out there who suffer from SBS!  They have valued skills that …… many would choose to stop using,  but do not for a lot of reasons. Money, prestige, student loans,….

In my last post, I talked about my talent for being a story teller.  I have spent most of my career in the computer and networking industries as a trainer and communicator. I developed the skill to inhale technologies and then spit them back out in stories, analogies and pictures that anyone could understand.

After my bicycle accident in 2002, where I should have died, I just did not want to do this anymore. After teaching high school math and working for a non-profit for three years, I went back to using my old skills. Why? I was lost and did not know what else to do.

After working for three years almost non-stop from 2007-2010, I said enough is enough. I did not want to use those skills anymore. If I had to inhale yet another complex technology I was going to BARF! I loved  the story telling,  but the inhaling of complex technologies that provided little value to our day to day life well….. BARF!

Could I do this? YES! Would people pay me a lot of money to do this? YES! Did I want to do this? NO!

Does this sound familiar?

I have multiple clients who have used the same skills for years. Frankly, they would rather set their hair on fire than to keep on using them.

What happens when they tell friends and colleagues that they do want to use them anymore?

OHHH… you are so…. good at it. Why would you want to stop?

I bet this sounds real familiar to a lot of you!  I am sure when you hear this you start to doubt your thinking.

SBS is a common diagnosis in the  baby boomer generation. Do you suffer from Skills Burn-Out Syndrome (SBS).

What skills do you possess that you do not want to use?

What is stopping you from doing something different?

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Check out my new book!

Repurpose Your Career by Marc Miller and Susan Lahey

“If you’re deciding what to do for act two of your career, read this book.” ~ Miriam Salpeter, Keppie Careers

Available on Amazon.com

You can also download my whitepaper “Don’t Retire Even If you Can and What to do Instead – A Baby Boomer Manifesto”

Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Career Tagged With: ,

Your Talents and Skills – Do you know the difference?

January 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Talents and Skills

I had a conversation with a friend last week about her talents and skills. This friend has a masters degree in Education and has been a training professional for many years.  She went huh.

If she struggles differentiating between talents and skills then well…. this is worth discussing.

Talents

Talents and SkillsDictionary.com gives the definition of Talent - special natural ability or aptitude: a talent for drawing.

A talent is something that comes naturally to you.

What are your talents?

I am in the Leadership Austin Essentials Class  for 2013 and in our opening retreat we were asked to tell the group what was special about ourselves. I had to think about this.

I am a story teller. I can tell stories anytime. I have an incredible knack to craft stories. I have naturally weaved this throughout my technical training and speaking career.

A talent is something that you look forward to doing.

What is special about you?

Skills

Talents and SkillsDictionary.com gives the definition of skills – the ability, coming from one’s knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well: Carpentry was one of his many skills.

I have lots of technical skills. I am planning to create an audible version of my book, Repurpose Your Career – A Practical Guide for Baby Boomers. I developed the skill for recording and editing high quality audio in my last corporate gig. In fact, I recorded and edited well over 20 hours of online curriculum. Was it a talent that came naturally?

NO!

I had to learn a lot about:

  • Positioning of the microphone
  • Preparing my voice for recording
  • Techniques for marking and then editing the audio
  • and much more

This was a most definitely a skill.

I have acquired most of my skills in my career at the bequest of my employer. I most often acquired a skill because my job required it. It was not because I wanted to acquire the skill!

Your Talents and Skills

Take a moment to write down all of your talents. These are the things you look forward to doing.

Is this difficult?

Now create a list of all of your skills.

On that same list, write down why you acquired each skill.

Many of us have acquired a lot of skills in our careers. Are there any you do not want to use anymore?

For most of you who are over 50 years old, the answer is probably YES!

What skills do you want to bring forward in your career?

What skills would you like to leave behind?

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Like what you just read? Share it with your friends using the buttons below?

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Check out my new book!

Repurpose Your Career by Marc Miller and Susan Lahey

“If you’re deciding what to do for act two of your career, read this book.” ~ Miriam Salpeter, Keppie Careers

Available on Amazon.com

You can also download my whitepaper “Don’t Retire Even If you Can and What to do Instead – A Baby Boomer Manifesto”

Marc Miller Career Design Specialist

Filed Under: Career, Interests Tagged With: , ,
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