Hold On to This Cliche After You Hit 50: Nothing Gets You a Job Like a Job

 We are back to the raw reality of our parents' generation: Jobs are hard to get. Attached to that brutal reality is another more optimistic one: Nothing gets you a job like having a job. Also, the reverse is true: Not having a job could mean you will have plenty of trouble getting a job.

On HuffPost there it is:

"Research finds that once you have been out of work for more than six months, it gets significantly harder at any age to find a job, but particularly for older job seekers." 

It should be obvious that if you're aging and without a source of income from work you should grab a job, any job. 

What unfolds is that, yes, having a job gets you a job. That is not only because it's a signal to employers that you are employable. In addition, it also does these 5 wonderful things for your job search:

Prevents you from getting rusty on the whole continuum of go-to-work personas and skills. If you haven't been on the job, any job, for even a few months you are out of sync with the rest of the work world. You bet, it shows. Hiring is a bet that an employee will succeed in performing that job. Since you present yourself as somewhat out of that box, you are a bad bet.

Positions you to be more relaxed in interviews. After all you have a paycheck, even if it isn't large, coming in. That makes it possible for you to meet with potential employers with confidence. 

Can add to your knowledge base and skill sets. These can be worked into your resume. And it is "learning on the company." You were actually paid to learn.

May open up a whole new career path. So what if you have to backtrack on how much you will earn while moving up in this kind of job. 

In the 2024 book "Nobody Cares About Your Career," former Barstool Sports CEO Erika Ayers Badan recounts how she took a whopper of a pay cut to shift at Fidelity from being a legal assistant to a marketing creative. The former seemed to her to be dead-end. The latter pushed her towards discovering where her professional sweet spot was. 

Provides a fallback for gig income in hard times. Post-9/11, my industry collapsed. With it went my communications boutique, my nest egg and my mind.

Cognitive therapist Amy Karnilowicz (based in Eastern Connecticut) had me get a job, any job. That any job equipped me with the humble mindset and skills in loss prevention which I know I can muster up if my current sources of income crash. In addition, the confidence I regained was the platform for building my next enterprise in communications.

Since Adam and Even were banished from the Garden of Paradise, we humans have had to work. Centuries upon centuries mankind has managed that. What we who have become so sophisticated about working might have to rediscover is the old-line simple wisdom: Nothing Gets You a Job Like a Job.

Career Coach Jane Genova provides end-to-end career services, ranging from diagnosis of the challenges and fix-it strategies to preparation of resume/cover letters and how to gain control of an interview. She specializes in over-50 work issues. For a confidential complimentary consultation please text/phone 203-468-8579 or email janegenova374@gmail.com. Fees custom-made for your unique budget.