0:02 What if the experience you think is making you too senior is actually the thing that can make you more valuable and better paid? Today, I'll talk about how to stop competing on age and start monetizing judgment, credibility, and the ability to produce results.
0:31 >> Who [music] are you? And where are you going? What [music] do you want?
0:46 >> Hello and welcome to people making money. I'm your host Kevin Bemel and I'm here every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time to talk about job hunting and being an employee, starting and running a business, and building wealth. So, the whole financial side of our lives. And as I've noted at on the shows this year, I'm doing them in repertoire with those three subjects. Today, I'm going to be talking about job hunting and being an employee. And in particular,
1:18 >> [laughter]
1:18 >> I guess I'm addressing, you know, people of my vintage because the topic is you're not too old. Um you know, this is I do hear this from people my age. Oh, age discrimination, blah blah blah blah blah. So, I I mean, I don't know. I Now, I have my own business, so um but I haven't found there's any age dis- well, I have found there is age discrimination going on, but it's primarily against younger people. So, I had a conversation earlier today
1:54 with someone who was telling me how lazy and undirected young people are. I don't know. I I think young people in general have been, you know, misdirected for a while now because society no longer tells us how our life is going to be lived and it's a hard thing to figure out. And when you're young, you haven't and you need time to do that. So, and and for what it's worth, I don't find young people to be lazy. I will say one of the best parts of my work is I get to work
2:29 with younger people in many cases and it's it's a tremendously great experience to do so. Having said that, it it can be daunting to job hunt when you're a quote-unquote senior. I'm not exactly sure at what age we become a senior. But I know for myself, I was you know, 5 years ago, I was thinking I was going to retire and some things happened in my life that did not allow me to do that. And at first I was sort of paralyzed by the thought of I'm X
3:06 number of years old. Who in their right mind would want to hire me? But then, you know, I had to get over it cuz I I I had to you know, rebuild my professional life and there were some things that I figured out as a result of this most what what I jokingly call Kevin 3.0 and and I want to I want to pass those along to you. And while they they are focused primarily on people who are
3:41 older and at least ostensibly have a lot of experience, I think they are very good for younger people to know about them because I think if you look at yourself and your career through the lens I'm going to present in a moment, you will find much greater satisfaction in your career and you will you will find your progression is much more to your liking. And so you may not be faced with the imminent problem of being, I don't know, 55 and looking for a job,
4:16 but but nonetheless we, you know, from time to time, people do find themselves needing to or wanting to hunt for a job. And so I think that this these these thoughts will be useful for you in that context as well. So, there are, I think, several misconceptions that seniors have when when they're job hunting. And the first one is, employers want younger, cheaper people. I I I I've I've heard that. So, uh you know,
4:52 it it's really like, once you reach a certain level of experience, you know, employers automatically see you as expensive, overqualified, difficult to manage, or you're close to retirement and so they they don't want to have you. So, um what if the question isn't you're too senior? What if What if the question is, what are they actually worried about? Okay? And you know, I think that the reality is, employers in general, I don't think they're
5:28 particularly they particularly care about age per se. I think age is used as a shorthand for other concerns, such as, will this person accept the compensation level that the business can afford for this position? Will this person stay? Can they report to somebody who's younger than they are? Uh will they adapt to a new workplace? Um are they going to want my job, me who's hiring them, because they're so, you know, older, maybe they're older
6:03 than me, are they going to look to take my job away? So, I think those are actually the concerns that are undergirding this idea that that, you know, perhaps they think I'm too senior, right? And so, the I think the challenge for experienced workers is to recognize the objection that's underneath the objection. I mean, that is oftentimes the case, whether it's in the workplace, whether it's in our relationships. Oftentimes the objective objection that somebody is
6:40 voicing is not the one that they actually have, right? And so, I think instead of defending, um you know, your age or your resume, look to proactively remove what might be the employer's perceived risks. So, so for example, you can say, well, you know, this role interests me because or, you know, at this stage in my life, what matters to me is, you know, the opportunity to work with with young
7:15 people, to stay vital in our industry, to be exposed to new ideas, right? So, right then and there, if their concern is, you know, will you stay? Can you report to somebody younger? You're you're telling them from the get-go, this is something I want to do. From my perspective, that's a positive. So, you know, you, employer, don't need to be concerned about those those things, right? Um you can say, you know, as part of the conversation, I'm comfortable working for leaders with
7:51 different backgrounds and levels of experience. You know, I I I would enjoy uh you know, in essence being a mentor on certain aspects that perhaps I have more experience than my supervisor in the same way that they have more experience in this company and they'll be able to mentor me in in how to how to operate within the the culture of this company, right? So, look at ways to uh not necessarily identify the actual objection itself, but what may be the
8:26 underlying objection and kind of turn it on its head so that whatever they're thinking may be negative, you're showing them that no, this is actually a positive in terms of hiring me, right? Um and so the other another aspect, it may be that indeed you know, they do want to hire cheaper labor per se and and so they are concerned that, you know, because you're more senior, it is going to cost them more, right? So, so the objection may be, you know, it it may be for real, right? So, in that
9:02 case I think you we need to um reframe that concern, right? So, uh they may think, okay, they're buying labor more cheaply with a less experienced hire um while overlooking the cost of mistakes, supervision, getting the person up to speed in terms of uh um um uh familiarity with the company and the processes and cetera. Um someone the the cost of of a a you know, more junior
9:38 person or I should say a less experienced person exercising poor judgment, right? So, there it it you know, again, it's it's a it's a reframe. So, it's not so much that you're older, but you have more experience that can benefit the company and actually save it money even though your compensation might be higher than that which they would have to pay for a less experienced person, okay? So, employers want younger, cheaper people,
10:15 misconception, right? Uh next, second misconception, my years of experience make me more valuable. So, it would seem on its face, you know, to have been in an industry for 25 or 30 years or whatever, automatically translates into greater market value. There may have been a time when that was the case, perhaps 75 years ago, but it is not the case today. There are people who are in an industry for decades and they're not really much
10:50 more skilled and experienced at the end of their work life than they were at the beginning. So, it's it's not an automatic thing and and any employer worth his salt knows that that's the case, right? And so, uh why is it then that some people with enormous experience struggle to get higher compensation, right? And and it really comes down to the market does not pay for years. It pays for those years that allow you
11:28 to recognize patterns, avoid mistakes, solve expensive problems, make decisions faster and better, build trust and create results, right? So, if someone has 10 years of experience and another person has 20 years of experience, it it does not act automatically follow that the person who's been around for 20 years has double the problem-solving ability of the first person, the person with only 10 years. And that's because problem-solving
12:04 is is part of that is taking initiative, part of it is creative thinking, part of it is the ability to work with other people and and and coalesce a team around a solution to a problem, right? None of those necessarily come with years. So, if you are senior and you have developed those skills, that's what you should be marketing, not 25 or 30 years of experience, but how that tran- how that experience
12:40 translates into economic value. So, rather than leading with I've been doing this for 30 years, blah blah blah blah blah, which especially if the person who with whom you're meeting is younger, can come off, you know, kind of arrogant, um start with well, I you know, I've seen this problem before. I've seen these problems before. Um I've worked on these kinds of projects before. And here's how here's what I've learned and here's how I've increased their chances of success
13:15 and reduced their risk of failure, right? So, translate the years into how you can use them to help the company be more successful. Right? So, um I was talking with my my nephew. Now, he's a he's a young man um and he was given the opportunity to present to senior leadership in his company a plan for how to recraft his position. And he sent me kind of a a presentation that he was going to use
13:52 and and asked me if I would read it over and I did. And I got back to him and said all of these things about your experience are fine and they're all good. Um hopefully your your supervisor and leadership already know this. What I would recommend is look at what you've done and translate that into how taking better advantage of that will benefit the company because that's really what concerns them. They may be saying to you, "Look, you're a bright young guy. We want to give you
14:27 opportunity." Okay, that got your foot in the door. But what they really have to care about is how do we grow the business? And if they think, you know, you're a bright young man and all that they're pleased with your performance, what they're really saying is we want you to be one of the people going forward to help us build this company. Show us you can do that. Right? And and that's that's why I say some of these items I think are equally applicable to younger people and older people, right? The bottom line for a business is what is the economic value
15:02 of of someone whom we hire, right? And so that's where uh you know, we need to do that translating work. The hiring manager is not going to know that. They may have read our resume, but unless our resume is written in a way that they can understand that aspect of us, they're not going to. Okay? They're not mind readers or anything like that. And it's not their job to figure out how we can best be, uh, you know, deployed in their company. It's our job to explain to them how can
15:38 I help increase the bottom line or make this company more successful, right? Okay. So, um, the other way of looking at this, I think, is there is an important difference between someone with 30 years of experience and someone with 1 year of experience repeated 30 times. Okay? They both have 30 years of experience. But, a person with 30 years of experience has built year-by-year to make himself ever more valuable. The
16:15 person who has has 1 year of experience 30 times is not is someone who's not really any more valuable 30 years later than they were when they first got started. And so, seniority becomes valuable when you've accumulated judgment, not merely tenure, right? So, ask yourself, what can I see, anticipate, or solve that I couldn't 10 or 20 years ago, okay? 15 years ago, whatever it is. That's the asset that
16:50 you're selling. Okay? And you might even consider being, you know, candid with the hiring manager, the person with whom you're meeting. Well, you know, when I first started in this industry 20 years ago, uh, you know, I think I made a lot of mistakes, but I've learned from those mistakes. And here's some of the things that I've learned. Okay? And that's a way of showing them that your maturity will translate into success for the company. Okay,
17:25 let's take a quick break and we'll come back for some more. When life brings unexpected changes, managing inherited property shouldn't add to your stress. Magnum Property specializes in probate and trust real estate management. We handle the complexities while you focus on what matters most. From property maintenance to tenant relations, from legal compliance to maximizing value, we're your trusted partner through every step. Magnum Property Inc. Turning property
18:00 challenges into peace of mind. Call us today at 213-264-4396 or visit magnumprops.com. Okay, the next misconception. To stay competitive, I need to look and act younger. Right? So, often times people feel and this is particularly true in the in the media business that, you know, experienced professionals have to in essence disguise their age and
18:37 imitate younger colleagues or prove somehow they're, you know, young at heart. I I mean, I first of all, does anybody believe that? Is anybody going to believe I'm, you know, 20 years old? I hope not. And if you are, by the way, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you, um, called the Brooklyn Bridge and it's located in Overland Park, Kansas, right? We we have to be authentic. And I I I think authenticity matters more today than ever before. So, um, you know, look, I got the gray hair. I I I earned
19:14 a lot of it. I can't say I earned most of it or all of it, but um that that is, you know, that is the nature of it. And and I just I just have to live with that, okay? That that's just the way it is, right? So, there's no point in my trying to be something I'm not, nor is there, I think, any value in you trying to do the same thing. So, the question is what should you demonstrate instead? And that is don't compete on youth. Compete on currency. So, the opposite of old in the
19:49 marketplace isn't young, it's relevancy. Okay? So, demonstrate that your experience is current. Okay? So, know the technologies and tools affecting your field, okay? If you are not If you are my age or around my age and you are not learning how to use the various large language models, you are not staying current. And the fact of the matter is
20:24 younger people are, no matter what you hear about people rejecting them, talented younger people uh are learning to use these tools and learning them effectively, and they they grew up in a much more native uh technological environment than people my age did. And so, we've got to stay current, and the best way to do it is to just do it. Just play with them, right? Um I my my my friend Tate, uh he and I when when large language models were first coming around, he and I were very very
20:59 skeptical about them. Um and then I don't know, we both kind of had this epiphany around the same time, like, maybe we should check this stuff out before we you know get our heads all turned around about it and now we both use them all the time right and we'll be together and we'll be saying what do what do you think of blah blah blah blah blah and he's and he'll be I'm he's on his phone going let's let's ask you know Claude or chat GPT or whatever it is. Uh you know we've got to be fluent with the tools affecting you have to be fluent with the two tools affecting your field. You need to understand how customers and
21:34 business models are changing. You need to be able to discuss other emerging technologies intelligently where they're relevant to your work. So you need to show curiosity about what's going on in your industry rather than defensiveness toward new ways of working. Okay? So look the fact of the matter is you don't need to be the best technician. You need to be someone who understands the tools, knows which tool to use in
22:09 which situation, when to use it, what questions to ask, and whether the answers make sense, right? So the fact of the matter is technology can increase the value of experienced judgment because it can put more relevant facts at your disposal more quickly than was possible in the past. And so take advantage of that. If you're in a meeting you know talking with someone about a job explain how you know I've been working with you know AI over the last
22:46 you know several months and this is what I found about how it enhances my ability to do you know whatever it is you were just talking about in the previous one about the experiences you've had, the projects on which you've worked etc. Right? So you really want to position yourself as having experience and adaptability. Okay? Because again, looking younger doesn't in the end doesn't mean anything if you if you can't do the job and trying to fake it
23:23 is even worse. So, rather than do that, spend the time making sure you're as current as you can be and then show how that can benefit the company. Okay, that's number three. Number four, my I think this is another misconception. My next job should be a bigger version of my last job. Well, the the fact of the matter is career advancement does not need to be vertical where it's always a bigger title, a bigger salary, a bigger staff, a bigger this, a bigger that. That's not
24:00 necessarily the case. Okay? Now, there was a time when that was how success was defined in the in the '50s and '60s certainly uh at the at the sort of heyday of the you know, man in the gray flannel suit, uh that was how it worked. But, I don't think that's how it works today. I I don't see that at all. Now, for some people, that is what will make them happy is, you know, climbing that ladder and becoming a CEO of a, you know, major company. But, I think for most of us that I'm not sure that that would lead us to success. And so, the question is,
24:38 what is the most profitable use of your experience? Um and maybe that isn't another traditional job, right? So, uh as you accumulate expertise, as you have more ways to monetize that expertise. Okay? It could be consulting, starting kind of your own firm, uh which is, by the way, the solution I came up with. I talked to a lot of people uh 5 years ago um when I realized I had to go, you
25:14 know, back into the workforce. And when I say a lot of people, a lot. Probably a hundred people, all all, you know, acquaintances and friends um about what I might do, what kind of job I might get, what, you know, blah blah blah. And and I and I realized the the most satisfying way for me to use my experience was to take and start my own practice. And it took some time for me to get going. There's no There's no question that that's the case, but uh you know, here I am today and uh you know, I'm I'm I'm I you know,
25:50 I I mean, I have as much professional satisfaction doing my work now as I had when I was a chaplain, where my professional satisfaction was very high for most of the time, right? So, uh maybe you're going to get into some sort of fractional leadership role, where you're a fractional CFO, for example. Maybe you're going to do project work or or take on some kind of advisory role. Maybe you're going to do teaching and coaching, okay? Serve on a board. These are all options, and today it's far more common for someone to have multiple sources of
26:26 income than it was, you know, 50-plus years ago, right? And and that may be more satisfying. It may It may involve more juggling. Okay, but that may be worth it because it gives you flexibility, right? So, um think about uh so, when moving from selling your time and title to selling your expertise and outcomes, right? So, and employ an employer hires a position, but a client hires a solution. And that solution is
27:02 not necessarily tied to the amount of time it takes to solve the client's problem, right? And once you uh separate time from compensation, you you realize you have a lot more flexibility in how to put your experience, your knowledge, experience, et cetera to work, right? So, um ask yourself these questions and hopefully they will reveal opportunities, professional opportunities that maybe a conventional job is not going to meet. And maybe
27:40 that's okay, right? So, um so you know, when you when you, you know, are going down this path, right? Um you know, there's a tendency to think, "Oh, you know, I I've got to have a job. I've always had a job. Um it's got to be 40 hours a week. Um you know, that's that's what's expected of me." Um but that's that's not really the case. So, um you know, a company may be quite happy to hire you for 10 hours a week. And maybe if it were a
28:17 40-hour a week job, they would only they would pay $40 an hour, but maybe for a 10-hour a week job, they'll pay 50 or $60 an hour, right? Because it's a lot less money, but you know, because they're not employing you full time, they'll pay you a little bit more in order to get your experience, you know, all of the things that I've talked about so far. So, think about reframing even how you might take a job, okay? And perhaps you can build yourself a position in organization that you'll find very satisfying. Okay, so that was
28:53 number four. Number five, at my age, I should already have this figured out. That that's you know, I I again, I hear that from people my age. Like, I mean, that's initially what I thought 5 years ago. It's like, oh my god, how could I possibly be in this position now? And the reason is because, you know, life takes turns that we don't expect. Okay? And the And And the reality of society today is, I mentioned this at the beginning of the show,
29:29 there are not nearly the the guardrails up today that there was when I was a kid. And when I was a kid, I I knew what the map was for my life. And over my lifetime, that map has become, in many ways, largely irrelevant. Okay? The problem is that the map was not replaced with the kind of tools we need to figure out to to pathfind, to use that to to
30:04 continue with that metaphor. If there's not going to be a map, we're going to have to be able to navigate using a compass and, I don't know, the stars or something like that. Uh and uh you know, I learned how to use a compass in the Boy Scouts, but I think I don't think compass training is part of the typical school curricula. Okay? So, we need to learn how to know what it is we want. And again, this is true for people like me who are senior, and it's true for more junior people. I I I used
30:40 to um mentor people coming out of the military uh when they were, you know, looking for their first civilian, you know, post-military civilian position. Most of those people were, you know, young, fairly young anyway. And a lot of them in the end just weren't really sure what they wanted to do. They knew they needed a job, um but but that's they didn't really know what they wanted to do, and I spent a lot of time helping them understand what kind of work do I want to do? What do I want to get out of my professional life? How can I continue to serve, which is an important aspect of
31:18 uh of what most people coming out of the military want, right? And so uh the fact of the matter is if you have indeed accumulated more experience this should give you more options rather than fewer options. But more options doesn't necessarily make it easier to get things figured out. In fact in the uh um the paradox of choice, uh Dr. Barry Schwartz talks about how
31:54 like people go into a grocery store and there's, you know 45 kinds of jelly and they're so paralyzed by the the the vast, you know, amount of choice, they choose nothing, right? So having more choice doesn't make it easier to figure out what we want to do in our life. Okay? So we still need to go through that process. And so in some ways, almost inevitably, as we get older and gain more experience our options increase and we have it less figured out because there's more to figure out. Okay? So
32:32 you know, don't let yourself be handicapped by this idea that oh, what kind of person am am I to be, you know, 55 years old and not know what I want to be when I grow up?" Uh that that is part of the human condition I today, I think. So, um experience creates assets beyond technical expertise, it relationships, reputation, pattern recognition I mentioned before, confidence, institutional knowledge, and a better understanding of what you're
33:07 good at and what you don't want to do anymore. Right? So, use that knowledge, that career capital, to figure out, "Okay, what do I want to do in, you know, me, you know, 2.0, me 3.0, right?" That's the process I went through 5 years ago, and it wasn't easy. You know, it wasn't. Um but I did speak to a lot of people. People
33:42 were really glad to help me. They introduced me to other people, which was terrific. And I figured it out. Okay, I I don't know that I figured it out quickly enough, not quickly enough, whatever, I don't know. I figured it out. I took and I did a very serious inventory of my career capital, and went through it and said, "I like doing these things. I don't like doing these things. So, how do I figure out how to you how to do these things in a professional context again, right?" So, uh that really is the that really is the
34:19 essence of it. Uh you know, inventory what you know, who you know and trust, and then identify problems that you've been asked to solve in the past and have solved, and then look at the intersection of those things. So, um it it it in my book I I should have grabbed a copy of it. I didn't think about this. I I I wrote a book called the uh eight deadly sins of job hunting. I know there's only seven deadly sins, but y- y- you know, if you read the book you would see you would learn why I you know, identified eight. Uh but there is a confluence between
34:54 our um knowledge, skills, and experience, what we like to do, and what the market demands. If you can picture there's a triangle there with sort of rounded sides. Inside that triangle is figured out. Okay? But the inventorying has to be done to find that triangle. Okay? And the fact that you you know, you're older gives you more information, more food for thought in identifying the
35:32 three circles, and potentially that triangle is bigger than somebody with less experience. Okay? So, look at find that intersection and build the next chapter of your professional life around the triangle, right? So, a- and recognize, too, that we I think we tend to think of salary maximization is always being the goal. Maybe it's not. Okay? Maybe it's satisfaction maximization that's more important. Maybe you don't need to
36:07 make as much money as you were needing before. That can open up more options for you. Or maybe you don't need to be making as much money right now. You can take a period of making less money and building back up to more, right? So, rather than getting kind of caught up in, you know, um earnings per hour and and autonomy or resilience or control, all these things, you know, you know, maybe think of it more in terms of where is my where is my triangle of of experience,
36:44 uh interest, and market demand? Where is it worth the most? Okay? And crafting a life within those constraints. Because we all face constraints. That that is the reality of life. There's no one who is constraint-free. Okay? So, uh that's those are my thoughts on um not being too senior. Um if you are um uh if if you are an older individual, like
37:20 me, um drop a comment, if you would, in the uh right below in the show notes. That's why I'm pointing down. If you look right below where you're watching this or listening to this, um are links to social media. Uh drop a comment as to where you've uh struggled or where you've had success uh in this, you know, job hunt um as someone who's senior. Maybe you can pass something on not only to your peers, but to younger people so that they can better prepare for the, you know, next
37:57 or later stages of their lives. So, look, the fact of the matter is your age is a fact, okay? It just is what it is, right? But your experience is an asset. Um if you only uh if you only package that experience in terms of the time that you've been in the market, um you're not going to be successful marketing yourself. If you package it in terms of the value that you can deliver to an organization, that is what's going to get you where you want to go.
38:33 So, I thank you very much for joining me today. Real quickly, schedule of shows, Monday at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time, Trust and Estates Weekly. Tuesdays at 10:00 a.m. Pacific, Business Lessons from the Military. Wednesdays, like today, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific, People Making Money. And then every other Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific time is my show, Join Me at Jiggers' Place, and we'll have a cocktail and a schmooze and talk about all kinds of things unrelated to finances. So, lots of times for us to be together during the week. Thanks again for joining me today. Wishing you a
39:10 wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do, Marie darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.