Smashing the Gray CeilingWritten by Virginia Bola, PsyD
For decades, women have chaffed at invisible glass ceiling which prevents their moving into high executive brackets that their competence, knowledge and skills have earned. The same amorphous barrier confronts older workers both in terms of advancement within a company and, most especially, when a job change is required. There is an adage in military that if a rank above major has not been obtained within twenty years, it never will be. The ranks of early military retirees are sprinkled with majors who knew that ten or fifteen more years would never bring a Colonel's cluster.How can such "unwritten rules" be fought? No lawsuit can prove that you were best individual for job. No employer is unintelligent enough to state that your age is stumbling block. You sense discrimination, you become aware of sideways glances and emotional response of an interviewer, but you feel powerless to change their perspective and their bias. Sitting across an interviewing desk, often facing an individual same age as your son, your esteem erodes and your confidence self-destructs. Impotent, humiliated, and angry, you accept that nothing you can say is going to change anything. You continue job hunting with a mounting sense of frustration and an indisputable anticipation of failure. If you have nothing to lose, why not attack problem head-on? Prejudice and discrimination survive only in silence of unexamined judgments and, often unconscious, illogic. Confront situation and at least you create opportunity for white light of reason to enter fray. Try these approaches to prompt more honest interaction and possibly more rational conclusions. 1. You need to be one to put age issue on table. Offer it gently, as one area of needed exploration regarding why you fit employer's needs. Bring it up objectively, as something that can be discussed unemotionally, without triggering lethal interviewer defensiveness. 2. Acknowledge your age as a basis for emphasizing experience of a lifetime and value that such experience can provide to any employer. Concentrate on describing how business has changed over course of years and how deftly you have adapted to those changes and incorporated new ideas and technical advancements into your work performance. 3. Acknowledge common misperceptions about weaknesses of age: hard-to-break habits, lack of flexibility, technological ignorance, and distrust of authority, especially if young. Then use your sales ability to eliminate those misperceptions, probably already resonating in interviewer's head.
| | Job Hunting Tips: Time ManagementWritten by Virginia Bola, PsyD
There is an old adage that "Looking for a job is harder than working." How true! The rigors of job search are magnified by turmoil we experience: lack of self-confidence, humiliation, financial pressure, and undercurrent of emotions that color all we do: fear, anger, depression, anxiety, loss. One practical step we can take to lower stress and conserve our energy for finding work, not feeding our bloated worries, is to manage our time effectively. Have you ever noticed that you get more chores done when you're busy? If time is limited, we squeeze in those extra demands because we know they have to get done by a deadline and we fear putting them off. When time is unlimited, such as when you take a few days off work, there is no pressure to rush-"I've got four days, I'll do it tomorrow." Suddenly, you are back at work and realize that you didn't accomplish half of what you had planned. This lack of structure is magnified when you are unemployed. There is no pressure to get up, get dressed, get out of house by a specific time. We know we have things to do. We need to update our resume, create some new cover letters, research some possible job openings. It is so hard to get started because we hate having to do it, we don't feel creative or excited about whole prospect, and we dread having to go through horrors of interviewing. We procrastinate, telling ourselves that when we are ready, it will just "flow." For a few hours, a few days, we'll just indulge ourselves and relax. When end of month arrives and we compare our diminishing bank balance to our multiplying bills, we mentally beat ourselves up for not having accomplished what we had so earnestly intended. Now we generate our own pressure, magnified by guilt and self-reproach. Stress levels and blood pressure rise. We feel resentful, angry, depressed. "I didn't ask to get into this situation. It's unfair. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it." Adopting a reasonable schedule can avoid reaching this point. Try these ideas: 1.Take a day to do nothing but plan out what you are going to do, and when.
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