Recruiting the Older Worker - Part 1 follow this blog post

posted by Kathleen Dodaro, Ph.D. on May 15, 2008

When I think of the word ?recruitment," I immediately envision a soon to be college graduate attending a career fair on campus and being courted by a number of corporate recruiters

 

What about the ?older? worker, and by that I mean the baby boomer, who 1) was forced to take an early retirement; 2) has had his/her pension wiped out by a corporate scandal; or 3) wants and needs to work past retirement age because his/her retirement income is insufficient.  These individuals have already worked 30-40 years, possess a wealth of knowledge, have proven themselves in the work world, and want to continue to work and contribute to an organization.

 

Several questions arise from this scenario and bear discussion in the future.  Should companies actively recruit the older worker?  For what type of jobs? How does a company best utilize the older worker?s skill levels? What will be the cost?  How will they fit in?

 

Part 2 will provide some recommendations. 

 

 

 

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•  Sarah Welstead

  1 point 17 months ago

  As someone who has been running an employment website for older workers for almost 5 years now, I think you might be missing 70% of older workers here (since our annual surveys of older workers say that only 30% of them are going back to work for the 3 reasons you've listed here).

  70% of the time - at least in Canada, and at least among our 25,000 registered job-seekers - older workers are going back to work for one basic reason: they are bored out of their minds. They raced to the retirement finish line, because they thought that was what they were supposed to do, but then 6 months in, they've renovated the house and tidied up the garden and look around and think "I'm only 60 - I can't do this for the next 25 years or I will go insane."

  And that's when they start to think about going back to work.

  As far as recruiting older workers is concerned, well, that's another matter. 90% of the time, we're seeing organizations ONLY start to think about older workers because they're desperate: they can't get enough students to do the part-time work; they've got maternity leaves to fill and no younger workers interested in a 6-month contract; or they've got some legacy systems that only some 25-year mainframe veteran knows how to use.

  Yes, it's changing a little - in the past 18 months we're seeing employers much more interested in older workers than they used to be; but again, that's more to do with desperation than anything else.

  Anyway, sorry to evangelize here - but with no established paradigm for older workers in the workforce, I think it's important to address some of these things.

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