8 great tips for boomers to find jobs in retirement

We’re always open here at BoomerCafé to suggestions about what to do once you’re old enough to retire, and how to do it. This particular piece comes from Art Koff, the founder of RetiredBrains.com, who wrote some practical advice for our friends at NextAvenue.org about Eight Great Tips to Find Jobs In Retirement.

Many employers have found that hiring retirement-age workers is a cost-effective way to increase productivity, bringing them on for very challenging part-time and temporary assignments during their retirement. Often, you can use the experience and expertise you’ve gained prior to retiring.

Art Koff

Art Koff

So, here are eight tips to find work in retirement:

1.  Register with temp firms in your local area. They don’t care about age; they’re more interested in your skills and experience. Also, if you get work through a temp firm, it helps build your resumé for future work assignments.

Tell the employer you are willing to start working as a consultant or on a project basis. This often gives you a leg up on younger workers.

2.  Accept an interview even if you don’t plan to accept the job if it is offered. You need practice with job interviews in actual situations. Interviews with friends and role-playing interviews are not the real thing. You don’t want to go to your first job interview in a long time with the employer you are really interested in working for and make easily correctable mistakes.

3. Consider having your resumé rewritten or updated by an expert. The resumé you used years ago is no longer appropriate.

4. Search for a job in areas that connect older workers with employers seeking to hire them. Click here and chose your state in the “location” area. Then enter your city location in the “keyword” box as well as other modifying criteria to narrow your job search. Consider putting the word “temporary” or “part-time” after some of these criteria so the system will return job postings that are often more appropriate for older workers.

5. When applying for a job, tell the employer you are willing to start working as a consultant or on a project basis. This often gives you a leg up on younger workers who are often unable to accept this kind of employment. Temporary employment or working on a consulting basis can often lead to full-time work.

boomer_work_26. Get information on the prospective employer prior to your interview. For example, contact someone who works for this employer who attended the same school you went to saying, “Hi. You and I went to the same school but graduated at different times. I’m interviewing for a position in your firm later this week and, before I meet with the hiring manager, I would like to test out a couple questions I have about the firm on you and see what you think the answers might be.” (Later, ask if you can use the person as an employee referral.)

7. Look into companies with fewer than 500 employees. Employers of this size have created most of the new U.S. jobs in recent years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

8. Volunteer with a charity or nonprofit. Although in most cases there is little or no monetary compensation, volunteering is often excellent experience and can possibly lead to employment with a firm seeking that particular experience or that appreciates your work ethic. It is also easier to find employment while you are working (including while you are volunteering), since you have a better mindset.

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