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Communication Styles in the Multi-Generational Workplace [Updated]

December 5, 2018 by Marc Miller 1 Comment

Generational Communication Style

Communications Style What is your preferred communication style?

Would you prefer to:

Write someone a letter
Talk to someone in person
Speak to them on the phone
Write an e-mail
Text them on your phone

Each generation has a preferred communication style that was developed a long time ago!

This does not mean that everyone within each generation communicates the same way, but there are clear generational patterns that directly correlate to the societal norms for when they grew up.

Let me pose the question – when someone moved out from their parent’s home, how did each generation communicate with friends and family back home?

Note: This post was originally published in November 2013 and was updated in December of 2018.

Greatest Generation (Born 1900-1924)

This was a period when you wrote letters. They were probably written in cursive! If you find letters from this time you will find that they often were beautifully written. My father and mother are from this generation. My father communicated home when he was serving in World World II by letters.

Telephone communication was in its infancy and was expensive.

Their preferred communication style is written.

Silent Generation (Born 1925-1945)

The rise of the telephone and long-distance calling made keeping in touch with home much easier. They talked to their friends and family. Many of this generation came of age in the 1950s and 1960s when just aboutt every home had a phone. Long distance calling was quite expensive but calling your friends in your neighborhood for hours at a time became common.

Their prefer communication style is auditory.

Baby Boomers (Born 1946-1964)

This is my generation and we used the phone. When I went to college we used systems like calling home, letting it ring twice and then hanging up. This was a sign to our parents to call us and pay the long-distance phone charges. Like the silent generation, we liked to talk to our friends.

I am right in the middle of the baby generation, born in the middle of the 1950’s. My first job after college was working for IBM developing word processors. Being able to mass produce the written word was just in its infancy with word processors, the personal computer, and later email.

Our preferred communication style is auditory.

Generation X (Born 1965-1982)

This is the first generation that had e-mail and other forms of electronic communications. Generation X brought back the art of writing … well, kind of. They wrote but not like the Greatest Generation. No more pen and paper. Learning cursive penmanship was on the decline. Then came the rise of the personal computer, word processing software, personal printers and finally spell checkers.

This kind of writing was very different from that of the Greatest Generation.

Their preferred communication style is written… well, kind of.

Generation Y (Born 1983-2000)

The rise of electronic communications was complete with this generation. Texting or instant messaging became the preferred method of communications. Like Generation X, their preferred communication was writing, but now it was really different from the Greatest Generation.

Do not think of leaving a note written in cursive for a Gen Y! They may not be able to read it!

Their preferred communication style is written… well, kind of.

What is your preferred communication style? Does it match with your generational norms?

Cross-Generational Communications

This is where we get into trouble. What if you have an office full of multiple generations each with their own preferred communication style? What if you interacting with people of different generations in your job search?

Let’s play a game!

You come to work and you want to ask a colleague to lunch today. Their office/cubicle is a 5-minute walk from your office/cubicle. How do you approach them?

Walk over and ask them face to face
Call them on their phone
Send them an e-mail
Text them

What would you do if you were:

65 years old
55 years old
45 years old
35 years old
25 years old

Would you change your communication style if the person you are asking was much older or younger than you?

Hopefully, I have gotten you to think!

Can we adapt? YES! For example, many Baby Boomers and Generation X have learned to text better so they can communicate with their children.

Here is the problem.

Teaching Generation Y to adapt their communication style once they get into the workplace.

This does not mean we all have to just text, e-mail or talk. We need to use mixed communication styles depending on who we want to communicate with.

As a professional trainer for most of my career, I learned that I needed to adapt to the learning style of my clients or students. Similarly, if you want to be understood and get your message across, you need to adapt your communication style to the preferred method of the listener.

As a Baby Boomer, I want my Generation Y employee to be able to clearly articulate in both oral and written forms (not texting). I may have to teach them that texting a baby boomer may not get them the results they want.

I have told many generation Y employees, that if they want their baby boomer boss to listen to them, they need to talk to them and quit texting.

Similarly, I may have to text my Generation Y employee when I need something from them! If you have not figured out, please do not leave a voicemail for a generation Y employee as they probably will not listen to it. Just go ahead and text them.

We all need to be able to adapt! There is no right communication style!

Does this have an effect on how you will interact with recruiters, hiring managers, and others in your job search?

What is your next step?

This is the second in this series on the Multi-Generational Workplace. Read the rest here Multi-Generational Workplace Series.

Marc Miller

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Mindset And Belief Systems In The 2nd Half Of Life

July 30, 2018 by Marc Miller Leave a Comment

Mindset And Belief Systems

We all have mindsets and belief systems that proved useful in the 1st half of life. I am squarely in the 2nd half of life and that mindset no longer works for me.

Over the last couple of years, many of my mindsets and belief systems have been challenged.

I am sitting in our rented house just outside of Ajijic, Mexico. We originally had planned to move here full time in the next 3-6 months. That plan is being accelerated rapidly; I would have never done that in the first half of life.

A big mindset shift but more on that later.

A couple of years ago, I would have never thought I would be leaving Austin, TX where my wife and I have lived for the last 40+ years. I believed that we would be living in our condominium, a short distance from downtown, for at least another 10 years.

Then a number of things happened that challenged me to look at why I was doing things the way I was.

Necessary Endings

In late 2016, I was introduced to the book Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward by Henry Cloud. You can read my full review of the book here.

My favorite quote from the book is:

“Whether we like it or not, endings are a part of life. They are woven into the fabric of life itself, both when it goes well, and also when it doesn’t. On the good side of life, for us to ever get to a new level, a new tomorrow, or the next step, something has to end. Life has seasons, stages, and phases. For there to be anything new, old things always have to end, and we have to let go of them. Infancy gives rise to toddlerhood and must be forever shunned in order to get to the independence that allows a child to thrive. Later, childhood itself must be given up for people to become the adults that they were designed to be.”

As we all move to the next phase of life, what things should end so that new things can begin?

Why am I Still in Austin?

It got me thinking, why am I still in Austin? Other than my wife, I have no family in Austin. My business is virtual and I work with clients all over the world. Although I do have a network in Austin, most of the people I regularly speak and interact with are not in Austin.

Why was I still here? I did not have a good answer. Austin has become very expensive and the city is growing by 150 people every single day. Traffic has grown dramatically. It is not the sleepy government/university town that I moved to in the late 1970’s.

The city had changed, but my mindset and belief systems had not changed with it.

Health Insurance and Healthcare

In October of 2016, we received our rate increase notice for our health insurance from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Texas. It was an eye-popping 50% increase which made us rethink this entire area of our lives.

My wife has endocrinological issues that are treated fairly inexpensively, that until the Affordable Care Act (ACA), disallowed us from the private health insurance market. I stayed employed in the private and public sector for years just so we could get health insurance from an employer.

I have had to rethink and re-imagine how we would get healthcare and pay for it.

Ever since that time, my mindset and belief systems have been challenged. You can read more about this in my recent post, The Looming Healthcare and Insurance Catastrophe for Baby Boomers.

Business and Economic Climate

I launched Career Pivot in 2012 when we were still clawing out of the great recession. My target audience was baby boomers who were struggling to recover the 2nd major recession in the last 10 years. Many saw that retirement was no longer a possibility, or like myself, had no real desire to retire like my parents did.

A lot has changed since I launched the business. The economy today is growing at a rapid rate, but at the same time, creative destruction has accelerated. I have had multiple clients who have seen their industry change so much that they no longer fit in, or their industry just simply went away. I wrote about this in the post Living in a “Career Disaster Area” at the Age of 65.

Even though the economy appears to be booming, it is not booming for everyone. Many boomers are being left behind in this economy. I wrote about this in my post Full Employment is Here Except For Baby Boomers.

Our finances and investments have done very well in the recent past, and with our move to Mexico, our expenses have been cut dramatically. I have started to look at my business model of one-on-one coaching.

I have rapidly reached the point where the people who can afford my services, are not the people who most need my services. This is why I have formed the Career Pivot Community, which is currently in beta phase. I am totally rethinking how I might be able to help my target market.

I have had to totally rethink and ask, why am I doing what I am doing, and for whom?

This shift in my mindset has been pretty dramatic.

Fixed versus Growth Mindset

I know many of you have what is referred to as a fixed mindset versus having a growth mindset. The quote I love from the linked article is this:

People in a fixed mindset believe you either are or aren’t good at something, based on your inherent nature, because it’s just who you are.

People in a growth mindset believe anyone can be good at anything because your abilities are entirely due to your actions.

I have a growth mindset. We arrived in Ajijic, Mexico a month ago on our third exploratory trip. Our plan was to find a long-term rental property and return in January to live full time. Well…. we discovered that simply will not work.

Rental properties are snatched up quickly. It is a hot market for long and short-term furnished houses and apartments. On top of that, the high season is October through March when snowbirds descend on the North Shore of Lake Chapala.

Our plan was flawed, in fact, horribly flawed. In the past, I might have continued for several more months trying to find something that would be available in January.

Instead, we have adapted and as I write this post, we are pulling together funds (all in cash) to put a deposit on a 2 bedroom, 2 bath furnished apartment with off street locked parking, and a courtyard for $950 a month. Rates have gone up a lot in the last 2 years. We are not waiting, and to follow the Nike slogan, we’re going to Just Do It.

We will take possession on September 3rd of 2018. We will likely return to Austin in late September to handle all of the details of renting out our condo there. This will include selling and giving away a lot of “stuff” and putting a little bit in storage. This is 3+ months sooner than planned.

My wife and I are adapting to the situation and changing our mindset and belief systems. Check out my podcast in a few weeks to learn more.

Has Your Mindset and Belief Systems Stopped You?

I want you to question yourself whether your mindset and belief systems are holding you back.

What is stopping you from taking that next step?

I know this is stressful because I find these shifts to be very stressful, but that has never stopped me.

What is stopping you?

Marc Miller

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The Looming Healthcare and Insurance Catastrophe for Baby Boomers

July 16, 2018 by Marc Miller 7 Comments

The Looming Healthcare and Insurance Catastrophe

Healthcare and health insurance are the driving forces for my wife and me to leave the country. I have been chronicling our progress on this blog and the Repurpose Your Career podcast. You can find the entire series of blog posts and podcasts here.

2019 looks like the year when those of us who are between 55-64 and are self-employed, or retired, will be left with few options when it comes to healthcare and health insurance:

Find a corporate gig with benefits.
Stay self-employed, insured and pay exorbitant health insurance rates.
Go uninsured and take the risk.
Get healthcare outside of the US.

My wife and I have chosen the last option.

How Did We Get Here

Ever since World War II, health insurance has largely been tied to your employer. You might want to check out the post, Fought for in War Lost in the Peace – Health Insurance and Employment [Guest Post], on why this is so. If you wanted health insurance, you received it as a benefit from your employer. If you were self-employed, you could purchase it on the open market with many stipulations, like no coverage for pre-existing conditions.

This has been a boat anchor around many of our ankles that deterred us from entrepreneurial endeavors.

When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted, it gave my wife and me incredible freedom. I had wanted to start my own business, in this case, CareerPivot, for years but I was never able to purchase health insurance on the open market for my wife. My wife has medical issues that are quite affordably treated, but not one insurance company would consider issuing a policy no matter the price. Therefore, I stay employed with a traditional employer just so I would have access to health insurance.

The ACA, which I might say is horribly flawed but fixable, allowed many baby boomers who were under the age of 65, to retire or pursue entrepreneurial endeavors and still be able to buy health insurance.

Then Came the AHCA

2017 was the year that the political forces in power in Washington D.C. planned on repealing the ACA and replace it. The problem was …. they had not a clue what they were going to replace it with.

ACA took over a year to create and it was horribly flawed. The current administration thought they would do something to replace it in a few months.

In 2017, the American Health Care Act, AHCA, was created and voted on by the House of Representatives in Congress. The AHCA passed the house by just a small margin, but it failed by a small margin in the Senate.

It would have allowed insurance companies selling through the exchanges, to double or triple rates for those over 60 years of age. It would have created a greater crisis for baby boomers than what is currently happening.

Since the failure of Congress to repeal ACA and replace it with AHCA, the current presidential administration has been working to strip away funding for the act. Over time, this will kill the ACA but there will be a lot of pain inflicted in the meantime. That pain will primarily be felt by baby boomers who are self-employed, or retired, and not old enough to be eligible for Medicare.

I personally know of a number of self-employed baby boomers who decided to go uninsured in 2018 and pay the IRS tax penalty. The individual mandate was eliminated for 2019, therefore, there is no penalty for going uninsured next year. More people will take the risk and not purchase health insurance.

2017 Was the Breaking Point

Healthcare and health insurance cost our household over $25,000 in 2017 and we did not reach our insurance deductible. Think about that for a second.

That would have sent many families into financial ruins. We are blessed that our budget could absorb that cost, but … it was not pleasant and we do not want to do that again.

My wife and I made the decision to start exploring our options soon after the 2016 presidential election. We knew that there would be a fight over health insurance legislation, and neither side had a viable solution. Every sign said it was going to get ugly – and it has!

We made our first trip to explore overseas options in March of 2017, and we are now on our 5th test drive in becoming an expat. After trips to San Miguel de Allende Mexico, and Cuenca Ecuador, Ajijic Mexico was chosen as our first semi-permanent stop.

What Are Our Options?

I fully expect there will be an October surprise right before the mid-term elections, but it will not be what you think. It will be letters sent to ACA subscribers with their rate increases.

Who will feel the worst pain?

Baby boomers between 55 and 64 years of age.

I am already receiving frantic inquiries from my self-employed friends who desperately need health coverage and know that they will not be able to afford the rate increases. For these people, they really have only a few choices:

Seek full-time employment with benefits.
Enroll as a part-time student at our local community college and enroll in the school’s health insurance plan.
Decrease your taxable income to be eligible for ACA tax credits.

Health Insurance Options

As I wrote in a previous post, Full Employment is Here Except For Baby Boomers, finding full-time employment, much less with benefits for baby boomers, is not as easy as it appears. The economists and our federal officials love to tell us we are at full employment and anyone who wants a job can have a job, but that is simply not true.

I have a good friend who runs a bed and breakfast with his wife. He has a number of health issues that make it difficult for him to return to the corporate world. His wife is enrolled at the local community college and registers for one course per semester. As long as she stays enrolled and passes the class, they can cover the entire family, which includes 2 children, in the student group health insurance program. It is not cheap (over $1000/month) and has a high deductible, but they are insured.

I am working to keep my taxable income, notice I said taxable income, for 2018 under $61,000. This is being accomplished by having my wife quit working, deferring income from 2018 to 2019, bringing in business expenses into this year, living in Mexico for 4 months and playing accounting games. If I am successful, I will get tax credits that will pay 95% of 2018 health insurance premiums which will exceed $17,000 for 2018. If we go one dollar over the limit, I get nothing. Isn’t that a pathetic game to play?

Are there other options? Yes, a good example is Christian Medical Sharing programs, but they are most suitable for families that have few or no medical issues. This is not a viable option for my family.

Healthcare Options

Over the last few years, my wife has been required to give up seeing doctors she has been seeing for years. Our current policy requires her to see only doctors in a single group practice. Now it is a BIG group, and all in all, she has been pleased with the care. Nonetheless, this caused a lot of stress for both her and myself as she is a former RN. She is picky about who she sees when it comes to medical care. When she gets stressed, I get stressed.

When we started to discuss leaving the country and doing our research, we got 2 completely different reactions from people when we told them about our plans:

“Aren’t you concerned that you will get inferior healthcare outside of the US?”

“I go out of the country for all of my healthcare needs.”

The more research I did, the more I realized that healthcare outside of the US could be better and less expensive. Well, not just less expensive, but way less expensive, while at the same time offering exemplary service.

Current Experience

A couple of weeks before our return to Mexico, my wife called to make an appointment with an endocrinologist. She dialed the number given to her when we visited the clinic on our last trip. What was surprising was the doctor herself answered the phone. It was her personal cell phone.

The doctor did not know the number of the clinic to make an appointment but told my wife to give her 5 minutes and she would get it. My wife called back in 5 minutes and the doctor gave her the clinic telephone number.

The endocrinologist comes to Ajijic from Guadalajara, which is less than an hour drive away, every other Saturday. My wife had an appointment last Saturday morning. The appointment lasted 2 hours and the doctor completely reviewed my wife’s medical history. Remember, my wife is a former RN! She was thrilled with the attention to detail and care that she received. The cost was 700 Mexican Pesos or 35 US dollars. WHAT?? That is not a co-pay, but the total cost of the visit.

They agreed that my wife should also see the hematologist and they immediately made an appointment for the following Monday. Notice it was not 2 weeks or 2 months in the future, but 2 days in the future. She ended up spending 1 hour with the hematologist and she was once again thrilled with the doctor. The cost was the same.

Consequences

I am not going to get into the politics on whether what the current administration is doing is right or wrong. What I am going to say is, there will be some extreme pain from what baby boomers will pay in the meantime.

This means if you are currently employed, you had better stay employed until you are Medicare eligible. Even if you are covered by a spouse’s group health plan, you cannot guarantee that will be affordable.

If you become unemployed, you will want to get creative. The US healthcare system is not the envy of the world anymore. There are other options that will make some of you uneasy, like becoming an expat. You might need to learn a new language or adopt new customs but at the same time, that may well extend your life and health.

The number of expats is growing at an incredible rate that there are already over 1 million US citizens living in Mexico. Many have been leaving because they can no longer afford to live in the US. Now, more and more people are leaving for healthcare and health insurance reasons.

We will purchase an international health insurance plan from one of the major insurance companies for 2019. It will be a third, to half, of what our current insurance costs and will have a deductible that is a fraction of our current deductible. It will not cover pre-existing conditions, but that is okay because we can pay our healthcare expenses out of petty cash. It is there just in case.

Late next year, my wife will be Medicare eligible and we will sign her up, even though Medicare does not cover expenses outside of the US. This is another complicated topic that I am still researching. It will be there just in case. I am multiple years away from being Medicare eligible.

We are making preparations for 2019, when we may very well have a healthcare and insurance catastrophe for baby boomers.

Are you ready for what is coming? What are you going to do to prepare?

Marc Miller

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10 Career Experts Share Their 2018 Baby Boomer Predictions

January 22, 2018 by Marc Miller 6 Comments

2018 Baby Boomer Predictions

It is January of 2018 and it is time to look to some experts for their predictions and prognostications for the coming year.

You can look back at the predictions and prognostications by a many of the same experts last year in the post 10 Career Experts Share Their 2017 Baby Boomer Predictions.

How did we do?

Let’s get started.

10 Expert Predictions for 2018

Skill and experience will be highly valued …

Chris Farrell, Author of Unretirement: How Baby Boomers are Changing the Way We Think About Work, Community, and the Good Life

LinkedIn: Chris Farrell

Skill and experience will be highly valued by employers in 2018. That’s the message in the low unemployment rate. The business press is running story after story with senior management complaining about the lack of qualified workers. Yes, age discrimination is real and still exists. But the current economic environment gives that experienced worker more leverage with employers. If my prediction that the tight job market will continue in 2018 is right, my recommendation is to take advantage of the market to negotiate your next stage. Want to work part-time? Your employer will probably listen. Thinking about changing careers? Do it now when managers are eager to hire. This year is a good year to take a risk for your next chapter.

Diversity-at-work Conversation …

Marci Alboher, VP Encore.org and author of The Encore Career Handbook: How to Make a Living and a Difference in the Second Half of Life

Twitter: @heymarci

Age will start becoming a part of the ‘diversity-at-work’ conversation. And employers will start to tout age-diverse, multigenerational workplaces and teams as a selling point when recruiting. This trend will take hold first in the nonprofit sector and around mission-focused work, but will eventually leak into all corners of the economy.

In the gig economy, employers very seldom worry about someone being “overqualified” …

Susan Joyce, NETability, Inc.

LinkedIn: Susan Joyce

In the gig economy, employers very seldom worry about someone being “overqualified” or the other concerns they often have when considering hiring a Boomer for a “permanent” job. When I was laid off from my last corporate job in 1994, an outplacement counselor shared very wise advice with those of us who were “older” (40’s and above) which I’ve seen to be true: While employers are often uneasy hiring a new employee who has gray hair, they are often very comfortable hiring a consultant or temporary employee who has gray hair. Gray hair on a consultant signals experience, wisdom, and skill.

Remote/Virtual work can be a viable option in 2018 …

Richard Eisenberg, PBS Next Avenue

Twitter: @richeis315

Remote/virtual work can be a viable option in 2018. It’s much easier to find opportunities through sites like Flexjobs.com and Remote.co. And employers are increasingly looking for ways to get the work done without hiring full-time, on-premises employees, which makes them more likely to offer work remotely or virtually. But job seekers must understand that some of these jobs don’t pay extraordinarily well. And some types of jobs are far more suitable for working remotely or virtually than others.

More people aged 65 or older are working now than in the last 55 years …

Brie Reynolds, Flexjobs

Twitter: @BrieWReynolds

Baby Boomers should keep this in mind for 2018: More people aged 65 or older are working now than in the last 55 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What’s the lesson here? For anyone in the second half of life looking for work and wondering if it’s even possible–it clearly is! Look how many people are doing it already. Whether it’s full-time or part-time work, employee or freelance/gig jobs, finding work that fits your needs and your life is entirely possible. Use resources like Career Pivot and FlexJobs to help you find your way. And as Marc says, find people who look, smell, and taste like you (aka, other boomers!) who are working, and get the inside scoop on how they made it happen.

The key word is ‘intermediation’ …

Neil Patrick, Neil Patrick Associates

Twitter: @NewCareerGuru

The gig economy has been widely vilified in 2017, mostly for low pay and exploitative employment practices. The key word is ‘intermediation’. Surrendering ourselves to someone else’s intermediation enables the exploitative parts of the gig economy to function. Where someone else (Uber, Airbnb, Fiverr etc) owns and controls our access to their market, workers can be exploited and are pretty much powerless to negotiate terms. On the other hand, people who control their own routes to market have the power to determine their own terms of engagement. They determine the price they charge; which gigs they accept or decline. The gig economy is now a thing. Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing for each of us depends entirely on whether we have figured out how to make it work to our advantage.

Boomers will successfully find employment by convincing young interviewers …

Toby Haberkorn, Author of Best Job Search Tips for Age 60-Plus

LinkedIn: Toby Haberkorn

In 2018, I predict that many Boomers will successfully find employment by convincing young interviewers that they have up-to-date experience, high energy to manage the workload and, of course, have a cheerful can-do attitude. In addition, Boomers will also give examples of positive experiences working with younger employees, who may have been their colleagues or managers. By being able to show successful collaboration with this younger workforce, Boomers will significantly increase their chances of being hired and fitting into the company culture.

Baby Boomers will attract employers who see their resilience and persistence …

Mark Anthony Dyson, The Voice of Job Seekers

LinkedIn: Mark Anthony Dyson

Baby Boomers will attract employers who see their resilience and persistence as a major asset to their company, especially those who embrace technology. Baby Boomers know how to ride the economic roller coaster and find timeless suggestions, solutions, and tactics to long-term problems.

Regardless of where they’re working, Boomers need to adopt the mindset of a consultant …

John Tarnoff, Reinvention Group LLC and author of Boomer Reinvention: How to Create Your Dream Career Over 50?

LinkedIn: John Tarnoff

Jobs are going away, little by little. The concept of long-term employment that we grew up with is being replaced by more freelance work, aka, the “gig economy.” Regardless of where they’re working, Boomers need to adopt the mindset of a consultant, delivering value to a client vs. as an employee taking direction from a manager.

In 2018, many Baby Boomers will leave their full-time jobs and go back to work …

Phyllis Mufson, Catalyst for Personal & Professional Growth

LinkedIn: Phyllis Mufson

In 2018, many Baby Boomers will leave their full-time jobs and go right back to work. They’ll want to use their skills and also to put off the time they’ll be drawing on their retirement savings. However; they want more flexibility and free time. In my community with many older residents, I see many ‘retirees’ working, sometimes into their 80’s. New retirees will build their own solutions from such examples as my neighbor, a retired college professor who taught online classes in her field. As she ages, she’s cut back to one class a semester. A retired social worker watches over several elderly people, visiting weekly, monitoring their care, and reporting to their families. Or, a retired nurse who works sporadically on a healthcare hotline between travels.

My Prediction

2018 will be the year that companies will have to look at older candidates …

Marc Miller, Career Pivot

LinkedIn: Marc Miller

2018 will be the year that companies will have to look at older candidates to fill vital positions. It is the combination of retiring Baby Boomers, the opioid epidemic, reduced birth rates and restrictions on immigration that will require companies to expand their hiring practices in a very tight job market.

So what do you think? Write a comment below with your Baby Boomer predictions for 2018.

Marc Miller

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Top 5 Unspoken Objections To Hiring A Baby Boomer [Guest Post]

May 28, 2015 by guest blogger 4 Comments

Top 5 Unspoken Objections To Hiring A Baby Boomer

There are certain universal unspoken objections that exist when considering whether or not to hire a Baby Boomer. You need to know what they are so that you can deal with them without them manifesting into an insurmountable problem.

Self-talk, at times, can be a wonderful thing. It can persuade us all to be more positive, it can lead us to achieve greater things, to step outside of our comfort zone and to do things we did not think were humanly possible.

Self-talk is not only a power for good, however.

Negative self-talk is built into the fabric of each and every one of us. We make negative assumptions about the world around us in every way imaginable. We talk ourselves out of great things. We look for ways to discredit. We find faults in everything. We do this every single day of our lives. Anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is a liar! It is an inevitability that negative self-talk will happen in the mind of every recruiter or employer when considering whether or not to hire a Baby Boomer. To make matters more complicated they exist only in the minds of the recruiters or potential employers. They will NEVER admit to them or say them out loud.

These are the top 5 unspoken objections to hiring a Baby Boomer:

UNSPOKEN OBJECTIONS #1 – You are Tech-Averse

Amazingly, 28% of the US workforce are technology averse.

These people are the 16% who have a cell phone but have not yet graduated to owning a smartphone. These people are the 20% who do not have wireless internet in their homes. These people have little or no social media presence whatsoever. You know who you are!

Being tech-averse is something that immediately makes you stand out from the rest of the workforce for all the wrong reasons, especially if that tech-aversion extends to you having a fear of all things social media related. The way that recruiters and employers directly source for candidates has changed forever. The first thing a recruiter does in the morning when they get to work is open their email, their database, and their LinkedIn page. It is now embedded into almost every sourcing model. Having a LinkedIn profile is a must, regardless of your age. If you do not have a LinkedIn profile, you need to get one NOW!

More: Can Disruptive Technologies Disrupt Your Career?

UNSPOKEN OBJECTIONS #2 – You won’t get along with younger members of the team

Lack of culture fit.

If I had $1 for every time I have heard this as a reason for not hiring an older applicant, I would be rich!

Older people tend to have more in common with older people, that much is obvious. That said, that does not stop older people from working well in multi generational teams (something that employers are beginning to see the benefit of more and more). A great way to convince an interviewer that you will work well with younger team members is to give them an example of a time when you formed a friendship with somebody much younger than you and how you built a great working relationship with them. If you can really make the point that you can give them all of your wonderful experience whilst at the same time engaging and communicate with the rest of the team, that will really help to put the interviewer’s mind at ease.

More: Gen Y Boss – Baby Boomer, are you ready?

UNSPOKEN OBJECTIONS #3 – You are stuck in your ways

A common misconception is that the Baby Boomer generation is set in their ways and not open to learning new things.

In my experience, interviewers automatically jump on the ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ bandwagon when considering Baby Boomer candidates. To combat this, offer up some examples of what you have recently learned something new. This doesn’t have to be work related. Try and demonstrate that you have not reached an intellectual plateau and that you can easily pick up new things quickly.

More: Talents versus Skills – Do you know the difference?

UNSPOKEN OBJECTIONS #4 – You are too expensive

Inevitably, the most experienced workers in the workforce are often the most expensive.

Remember that you are competing with other candidates who will be a LOT less expensive than you in terms of salary. The best thing you can do to handle this, in my experience, is to state your openness and flexibility (to an extent!) when it comes to your salary requirements. I have lost count of the amount of time I have seen Baby Boomers lose out on a job simply because they were unwilling to lower their salary requirements.

More: What is Your Current Salary? How to Answer!

UNSPOKEN OBJECTIONS #5 – You are too negative

Now, this may (or may not) come as a shock to you, however, there are a huge amount of Baby Boomers out there who have a very negative outlook when it comes to life in general!

This can be a huge red flag for any interviewer. It is your negativity that stopped you getting the job, not your age. Try and be as upbeat as you can and avoid telling negative stories at interview. Smile and try and steer your answers in a positive direction! Also, reiterate your openness to trying new ways of working. This in itself can have a hugely positive impression in the minds of the interviewer.

The only way to deal with these unspoken objections is head on!

You need to get them into the conversation somehow, whether that is face to face in an interview or simply over the phone. Tick them off in your mind one by one as you go along. If you manage this, you will have done as much as is humanly possible to erase the negative self-talk that exists in the mind of the interviewer and will improve your chances of landing the job exponentially!

Have you heard any of these unspoken objections in your career?

Chris Morrow has spent the past decade working in the recruitment industry in both the UK and Australia. He is a Candidate Coach & Founder of chrismorrow.careers a website dedicated to helping job seekers improve their chances of success when looking for a new job

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2018 Baby Boomer Predictions

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Skill and experience will be highly valued …

Chris Farrell, Author of Unretirement: How Baby Boomers are Changing the Way We Think About Work, Community, and the Good Life

Diversity-at-work Conversation …

Marci Alboher, VP Encore.org and author of The Encore Career Handbook: How to Make a Living and a Difference in the Second Half of Life

In the gig economy, employers very seldom worry about someone being “overqualified” …

Susan Joyce, NETability, Inc.

Remote/Virtual work can be a viable option in 2018 …

Richard Eisenberg, PBS Next Avenue

More people aged 65 or older are working now than in the last 55 years …

Brie Reynolds, Flexjobs

The key word is ‘intermediation’ …

Neil Patrick, Neil Patrick Associates

Boomers will successfully find employment by convincing young interviewers …

Toby Haberkorn, Author of Best Job Search Tips for Age 60-Plus

Baby Boomers will attract employers who see their resilience and persistence …

Mark Anthony Dyson, The Voice of Job Seekers

Regardless of where they’re working, Boomers need to adopt the mindset of a consultant …

John Tarnoff, Reinvention Group LLC and author of Boomer Reinvention: How to Create Your Dream Career Over 50?

In 2018, many Baby Boomers will leave their full-time jobs and go back to work …

Phyllis Mufson, Catalyst for Personal & Professional Growth

My Prediction

2018 will be the year that companies will have to look at older candidates …

Marc Miller, Career Pivot

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Top 5 Unspoken Objections To Hiring A Baby Boomer

UNSPOKEN OBJECTIONS #1 – You are Tech-Averse

UNSPOKEN OBJECTIONS #2 – You won’t get along with younger members of the team

UNSPOKEN OBJECTIONS #3 – You are stuck in your ways

UNSPOKEN OBJECTIONS #4 – You are too expensive

UNSPOKEN OBJECTIONS #5 – You are too negative

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