I always thought that, for me at least, retirement would suck – and it did! After three months of ‘having the time to do all the things I’ve never had time for’ (art exhibitions, leisurely lunches, exploring the city, country walks etc) I bought myself a laptop and set myself up as a free-lancer. Some of my friends and contemporaries had talked about it but, for most, talk was as far as it went.

Now it seems, more and more over 50s and retireds are being forced into self-employment as the job market contracts even further for them. Starting up in business or going it alone at any age has always been thought rather entrepreneurial so it was great to read about the new label given to the over 50s who set up on their own – Olderpreneurs! I’m not sure where this originated but I first spotted it in a report in www.thisismoney.co.uk on the latest statistics from PRIME (the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise).
According to PRIME, more over 50s are starting up in business than five years ago. From a survey of 500 clients who contacted Prime between 6 and 18 months ago, 45% have now started up their own business and only 15% have given up on the idea – quite an improvement on a similar review conducted in 2005. The results then showed 43% starting up, and a much larger 27% giving up within 18 months.
Obviously 'olderpreneurs' are not being put off by the recession, even if some have been forced to find different ways of earning a living since the downturn. Good luck to them all.

Some time ago I read an article about Facebook being an identity scammer’s dream. I didn’t think anything much about it at the time but a couple of days ago I received two emails purporting to be ‘friends’ from Facebook and asking me to email them on specific hotmail addresses. I didn’t recognise either of their names and certainly didn’t respond as they had asked but I did wonder if this was another cybercrook scam using the familiarity of Facebook to obtain identity information.

Last year IT security firm Sophos re-investigated how easy it was to steal identities via Facebook and found that user negligence was even worse than their previous study. They created two fictitious users and sent out 100 friend requests from each – within two weeks a total of 95 strangers agreed to become friends with the fictitious characters.

Many of these befrienders gave away their full date of birth (89% of the 20-somethings and 57% of the 50-somethings) and just under a third of the over 50s group also gave away personal information about their friends and family.
Sophos revealed that 10 years ago it would have taken several weeks for con artists and identity thieves to gather such information about a single person but social networks have made it easy for the bad guys to pick up personal information and build a detailed picture of innocent members of the public.
Personally I’d rather have less Facebook ‘friends’, or none at all come to that, rather than risk becoming a victim of an identity thief.

Around £72bn a year is lost from the economy due to worklessness within the over 50s age group according to Laurie South, chief executive of PRIME (the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise).
The number of 50-plus workers trapped in long-term unemployment has rocketed to a 10-year high, with the total figure of over-50s jobseekers rising by 50% in the last year alone. “This is the highest level of long-term unemployment among over 50s that we have seen in a decade and brings back the spectre of the last two recessions” said the charity Age UK.
Apart from the cost, ageist employers also deprive the UK labour market of some of the most experienced, skilled and knowledgeable workers with “a generation of Britons over 50 facing entrenched workplace discrimination…”.
“At this time when Government is putting together the specifications for the new single Work Programme, we cannot afford to miss the opportunity to build in tailored, effective measures to help a significant number of the 3 million workless over-50s back to work”
The latest figures also show a significant gender divide as men comprise more than three-quarters of those over-50s who have been unemployed for a year or more.

In the news this week I read that the UK’s Digital Champion, Martha Lane Fox, wants to get everyone of working age online by 2012. Her report, the Networked Nation Manifesto highlights the lack of internet access among the nation’s unemployed, disadvantaged and retired and outlines various plans to achieve the aim of getting “everyone of working age online by the end of this Parliament”.

She also suggests that internet organisations should promote the benefits of the internet to the 6.4 million of the over 65s who have never been online, presumably aimed at the 63% who can see no good reason why they should! Generally speaking a worthy, if amazingly ambitious, idea since more and more businesses and service move online.
But the issue of who will pay for all of this is still outstanding. Presumably not the government which has recently been forced to make spending cuts in many areas, including spending on IT in schools and, potentially, funding for public internet access schemes. Funding from the private sector has been mentioned. Also a suggestion that retailers should provide "internet access packages for people on low incomes and the elderly, with low up-front costs, affordable monthly payments, and ongoing support” – meaning that the disadvantaged pay for it themselves!

Lastly, I wonder if the report includes free internet access to criminals in prison. This was a view Martha Lane Fox gave publicly last March amid rising concern about prisoners using social networking sites to threaten their enemies, their victims and even members of the police and prison services.

For the over 50s, a CV is a valuable record of their working life, the experience and skills they have gained over the years and the knowledge and understanding picked up along the way. But it can also be the most valuable tool in their armoury.

Most people spend a lot of time and effort putting together the ‘perfect’ CV, sweating over the order of content, number of pages, grammar and spelling, with a photograph or without and so on. Then identical copies of this ‘perfect’ CV are scattered around to job agencies, headhunters, websites and prospective employers, to anyone in fact that they feel may have suitable, or even vaguely suitable, job vacancies. Used in this way a CV could actually turn into a dangerous document - if it gets out there, and is sprayed around, it risks making you look desperate, just one of a vast horde of people looking for jobs

To make a CV really work to your advantage it should be tailored so as to be relevant to the individual company and job vacancy you are actually applying for. For instance, if you were applying for a job with a pharmaceutical company such as GlaxoSmithKline, and you knew that they were expanding their research department to create cancer compounds for the developing world start your CV with “I am an experienced research scientist who intends to work on cancer compounds for developing countries.” In terms of that employer, this would be a great start to a CV.

Careers company, Position Ignition, www.positionignition.com believe you should be sparing with the information you put on your CV. For instance, prospective employers do not need to know your home address. If the job requires that you work in China, there is no advantage in advertising that you do not live there at the moment. For the same reason, do not include your landline, only your mobile number.

There is no need to include your date of birth, or dates for education or employment. Prospective employers only need to know what you’ve done, not how old you are.

Finally, the most important tip: start your CV with a statement of who you are, and what it is you are aiming to do for your target employer.

Happy hunting!

Here are some thoughts for you from Position Ignition, providers of Personal Career Services

What is your value in the workplace?

There is a suggestion in the question that the jobseeker feels they are too old, over the hill, offer little value to a prospective employer.

That’s largely because our society is besotted by youth. The media are constantly celebrating energy, enthusiasm, stardom and glamour. All very attractive, but not actually that much use to a potential employer. In other societies, they value wisdom which is hard won, and only comes with age, experience and a developing understanding of life. That is of huge value to a potential employer.

If you were to draw a graph with age along one axis, and levels of energy and wisdom on the other, there’d be two lines. One dips down – that’s energy – which, of course, we lose a bit as we age. The other, wisdom, rises. At 50, you are starting to gather useful wisdom, and the best years, in employment terms, should be ahead of you.

What are you offering an employer?

We each bring a unique mix of ourselves, our talents, backgrounds and experience to the workplace. Working with a Position Ignition guide, you could explore together who you are in work terms. Using your life story, begin to construct a detailed picture of your values and beliefs. Use a range of technical tools and processes to establish your passion and excellence. Have discussions about a wide range of subjects and your life experiences. This will help you become more aware of your uniqueness, and your unique value in the workplace. And that, in turn, will boost your confidence.

How are you marketing yourself?

A Position Ignition guide can help you construct a model showing what you are best at, what you are passionate about, and what your value is. The place they intersect is the sweet spot, the best of you, and we’ll help you bring that to market.

With clarity will come a sense of what direction you should go in. Once you know that, you will have more energy. And that will lead to your having more success.

Is it a home, a bedroom, a restaurant, an office, a mode of transport or just storage space? Although designed primarily as a mode of transport, it seems the average car now has far more uses than simply getting from A to B.

According to a study run by swiftcover.com , the online, 60 second quote car insurer, cars are now used as an extension to our homes and offices and for some, have actually replaced the home altogether – 5% of respondents to the survey said they had lived in their car!

83% said they had slept in a car and the same percentage have eaten a meal (rather than a snack) in the vehicle. 93% have used the car to change their clothes, 67% for “close relationships”, 49% as an office, 47% as additional storage space, 41% to shave or put on make up, and an amazing 6% have even proposed marriage (or been proposed to) whilst sitting in a car! I do hope that none of this has taken place whilst the car is moving, but I wouldn’t bet on it. I must own up to having had the odd picnic meal in the car myself, but that’s all I’m admitting to – like most over 50s I was brought up to respect the motor car!

Apparently cars are also a common location for relationship make ups and break ups – well that doesn’t surprise me with everything else that is going on there! But I doubt that any old car would be suitable for some of these activities – obviously something from the top end of the market, like a Jaguar, would probably offer the most comfortable bed, a Range Rover maybe for extra storage space and almost anything, from a Smart car to a Jeep would do for a quick shave. I’ll leave you to cover the rest…

The choice of Barack Obama as the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize has been received globally with surprise, puzzlement, controversy and some disbelief – but, outside of America, I’ve neither heard nor read of anyone applauding or agreeing with this award.

All of us over 50s will realise that this suddenly puts Obama in the same company as Mandela and Gorbachev, previous Nobel prize winners. Try as I might I simply cannot think of anything Obama has yet accomplished that comes even close to Mandela who was key in bringing about the end of apartheid or of Gorbachev helping to end the cold war! Given that the 2009 nomination of Obama was made when he was just nine days into his presidency he would barely have had time to re-organise the Oval office.

I even heard it suggested, more than once, that the prize had been awarded for “future accomplishments…” No pressure there then Mr President.

Sadly, this seems to de-value the significance of a much revered award, and I think the fact that Mr Obama has happily accepted this prize so early into his term of office is hugely disappointing.

 

At long last the Government has come clean about the true state of the economy and proclaimed it is taking tough but realistic measures. Good I, thought, action at last. And about time because it seems to me that we need some urgent spending cuts whilst planning for the medium and long term.

So I was pleased to read the announcement in the Guardian yesterday that they are recommending either a pay freeze, or maximum 1% increases, for 750, 000 public sector workers. Well that sounds like a good start (okay so I’m not a public sector worker, but even if I were I don’t think I’d object to a pay freeze knowing I had such a good pension coming). No need for retirement jobs in that sector!

But did you notice the actual wording - they are “recommending” which actually means the Treasury will make a recommendation to the independent pay review bodies who will probably create a committee… undertake a review… negotiate… deliberate… So how long will that take? Don’t hold your breath!

Suddenly my inbox is filling with the announcements of newly launched ISA savings offering the chance to gain extra interest on my saving. Even Which? magazine got into the act. Why the sudden urge to give me a little extra when, for the last year or so, they have been slashing the rate?

Have they had a change of heart (or should that be moral principle)? As a cynical over 50s saver I don’t believe that for a minute. A quick check on the internet, my favourite personal finance site www.thisismoney.co.uk to be exact, and I soon learned the reason. On 6 October 2009 the ISA (individual saving account) limit for the over 50s will be raised to £10, 200 in total (only £5, 100 of this can be invested in a cash ISA).

The usual glut of surveys on the subject appeared from the likes of Saga, Lloyds Bank and Uswitch pointing out that anything from 15-54% of us are not aware of the new limit. I had to smile at the one that said this demonstrated the government needed to do more to advise people of the increase. Come on, how likely is it that they would promote the value of savings (they never have before) especially when said savings are tax free!