5 Attitude Shifts Baby Boomers Must Make To Keep Their Jobs Well Into Their 60s, According To Career Coach
How the retirement generation can still succeed in the job market.
Hirurg | Canva Jobs for Baby Boomers are a little difficult to come by, but certainly not impossible by any means. They're out there. "Who is going to hire a 62-year-old?" Career coaches often hear this plaintive question from older folks.
The unemployment rate among workers age 55 and older has skyrocketed since COVID, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Millions of jobs are not coming back.
"Unlike previous recessions, this pandemic-led downturn has hit older workers especially hard and will likely create long-term employment challenges for them," according to Richard W. Johnson, who directs the program on retirement policy at the Urban Institute.
Rather than accept the myth of the Golden Years in retirement playing out, embrace these attitude shifts and think of this as the Baby Boomer Golden Age for meaningful work that keeps you feeling whole and alive as long as you can.
The attitude shifts Baby Boomers must make to keep their jobs well into their 60s:
1. Know who you are, where you fit, and how you can add value
For many who entered the workforce 30 or 40 years ago, we were expected to conform and adapt to organizational requirements. The old joke was IBM stood for "I’ve Been Moved." We literally "went to work" in downtown offices, traveled extensively for meetings, and the job demands came first.
Who we were was "who we needed to be" to succeed in prescribed requirements and expectations. Now, you can think about what you want to do, the kinds of people you want to work with, and how you would like your skills and experiences to be utilized.
Self-reflect so your work-life can be congruent with how you want to live. Maybe you don't want traveling and fixed hours because you want more time with family, as well as autonomy and flexibility in your work schedule.
These new preferences can shape your search for the next stage of work, but you need to evaluate what you want for yourself, the environment (both human and physical), who you want to be engaged with, the purpose and meaning you want to fulfill, and what you offer that others value and will pay for.
Most often, third-stage workers want to feel useful and needed, purposeful, and in life-affirming collaboration with others. Go with your aspiration to fulfill these desires.
2. Let go of the illusion of certainty and security
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Most of us were oriented to working within organizations and institutions that retained their good workers and promoted based on achievement, competence, and the internal company's professional reputation.
Today, the work world is more team and project-oriented. Longevity is less assured.
Change your expectations. You may both find different work, and evolve in your assignments, and even your role.
3. Adopt an entrepreneurial mindset
You are responsible for creating your opportunities. Adopt the adage, "You eat what you hunt."
If you seek opportunities based on your criteria and use the systems that are already organized and available, you can find work, even if you're not certain about the duration and outcome.
Entrepreneurs invest their time and resources to serve others and create value. You can do the same even as a freelance, part-time, or time-limited worker.
4. Create a diversified work portfolio
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Consider approaching your third stage of work as you would your investment portfolio. If you're familiar with diversification in asset management, then you can apply the same to your work portfolio.
Different work may simultaneously provide and satisfy diversified experiences and fulfill different needs.
In my case, I'm simultaneously a university instructor teaching interviewing and writing to undergraduate students, a career coach helping individuals make transitions for work that matters to them, and a memoir writer helping someone transmit their life story to their family and friends.
The university experience satisfies my teaching and young adult interaction needs.
Career coaching satisfies my helping and serving others in a deeply meaningful way.
My memoir writing enables me to help someone find the connections and meaning from their own experience.
Each role and set of tasks are different, yet when combined, they satisfy varied interests. I also have a very active volunteer work life that enables me to be in the "fellowship of endeavor" with like-minded people in causes I care about.
I also take classes, and webinars, and even have private tutoring to learn a language for future extended travel in a foreign country. So, feel free to mix it up.
5. Be more agile and fearless.
If you can reimagine your life story to be based on joy and abundance, rather than fear and scarcity, you can enable your trajectory.
Agility means you can be flexible and pivot readily to changing circumstances and opportunities. Being fearless means you're willing to take calculated risks for your own happiness without knowing what the result will be.
Having the determination and grit to give it a go, you can allow for emergent possibilities. Consider yourself as an "independent economy."
If you can navigate your career in this third stage, you may find you can steer through the turbulence and create your route to meaningful, purposeful work that matters to you.
Jeff Saperstein is an ICF-certified career coach and memoirist who works with business professionals who feel stuck and want a career transition.