5 Great New Books for Your Career

(They can help you switch jobs, get promoted or start a business)

With businesses hiring 200,000 people in January and consumer spending on the rise, 2018 looks to be a good year to switch jobs, get promoted or start your own business. So to help you make the most of this hot economy, I’d like to recommend five books published in the last few months that can help accelerate your career progress this year. You’ll find my descriptions in the accompanying slideshow.

And if you’re looking for other books about work, as well as psychology,  check out the Next Big Idea Club.

It’s a new online book club created by powerhouse authors Adam Grant, Susan Cain, Dan Pink and Malcolm Gladwell. Each quarter, they pick two new must-reads, discuss them online and donate 100 percent of the profits to The Future Project, which will give students in under resourced communities two books for every subscription.

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Bored and Brilliant, by Manoush Zomorodi, host of WNYC’s podcast, Note to Self, is not technically a career book. But if like me, you’re concerned about how technology is impacting your focus at work, you’re going to love it.

Zomorodi pulls together cutting-edge research, neuroscience and real-life stories to make the somewhat counterintuitive argument that we need boredom to spark productivity in our lives. Her subtitle: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self.

Yet, in today’s 24/7 wireless world, we’re rarely idle: we tweet walking down the street, scroll Facebook and Instagram while watching TV and check texts before going to sleep. All that busyness makes us feel productive, but in reality, it erodes our creativity and problem solving abilities.

Fortunately, Zomorodi serves up a slew of practical solutions, most of which were crowdsourced from her 2015 Bored and Brilliant challenge that helped her podcast listeners gain control over their tech-taskmasters. She discovered that even small tweaks to daily routines —taking a 15-minute phone-free walk or declaring the bedroom a screen-free zone — led to healthier digital habits and more free time for productive brainstorming.

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The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business by business writer Elaine Pofeldt is a helpful read if you’re thinking about starting a business, even if you don’t aim to earn a million dollars. While most books in this genre focus on how to grow a business and add employees, this one targets entrepreneurs who prefer to work on their own and have work/life balance, too. Its subtitle: Make Great Money. Work the Way You Like. Have the Life You Want.

Pofeldt identifies six categories of solo businesses that most often hit the million-dollar range — e-commerce, manufacturing, informational content creation, professional services and creative businesses, personal services firms (such as fitness coaching) and real estate. Plus, she provides helpful example of entrepreneurs who work in those sectors.

Best of all, this guide is filled with practical advice, thoughtful exercises to help you refine your business idea and many useful entrepreneurial resources.

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Entering StartUpLand: An Essential Guide to Finding the Right Job by Jeffrey Bussgang, a serial entrepreneur and Harvard Business School professor, provides a fascinating peek into the workplaces of little-known world of startup ventures.

While there are many books written for people who want to create startups, this the first one I’ve read focusing on what it’s like to work for one. Bussgang does an outstanding job explaining how startup roles and responsibilities differ from those at more conventional companies, with entire chapters devoted to sales, business development, marketing, product management and finance.

Whether your goal is to get hired as a startup employee, adviser or contract worker, this book will help you understand what such firms look for, the skills you need to be successful and the best ways to find those elusive job openings.

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For Great at Work: How Top Performers Work Less and Achieve More, University of California Berkeley management professor Morten Hansen conducted an exhaustive study of over 5,000 managers and employees. The result: seven work principles that can help you be more successful at work.

As a career coach, I was fascinated by Hansen’s observation that people who are most satisfied with their careers combine both passion and purpose. Pursuing your passion is great, but it’s rarely enough, his study found. To enjoy sustained success, you need to match your passion with activities that add real value in personally meaningful ways.

For more about how to work less and achieve more, read this interview with Hansen by Next Avenue Work & Purpose channel editor Richard Eisenberg.

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As the #MeToo movement continues dominating the news, I’d like to recommend Disrupters: Success Strategies From Women Who Broke the Mold  by Patti Fletcher, a gender-equity advocate and leadership coach. Disrupters includes interviews with women of different races, industries and ages whose stories illustrate that there are many possible paths to crafting a fulfilling career.

Fletcher discusses the cruel role gender bias plays in today’s workplace, with plenty of depressing statistics to back up her observation. For example, she notes, women account for half of business school applicants and 67 percent of college graduates, but only 26 female CEOs lead the big S&P 500 companies.

While she acknowledges the obstacles women face, Fletcher puts far more emphasis on practical and tested ways they can thrive. One of my favorite tips is her observation that rule breakers “create their own network of like-minded people who are committed to mutual support — not the transactional what-can-you-do-for-me-now type of networking we usually see.”

Ultimately, the main message of Disrupters is that success doesn’t have to mean climbing the corporate ladder.

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Lasting success, Fletcher notes, is about identifying priorities, finding a lifestyle that supports your goals and enlisting the help you need to support your goals.

7 Ways Employers Can Support Older Workers And Job Seekers

With the unemployment rate (4.1%) at its lowest since 2000, employers are struggling to retain their best workers and attract qualified new ones. Although their efforts are often directed at Millennials, in places where people in their 20s and 30s are increasingly hard to find, employers are equally focused on people in their 50s and 60s.

For example, in May, more than 170 New England employers, policymakers and business leaders came together for an event notably titled, Gray is the New Green: Unleashing the Power of Older Workers and Volunteers to Build a Stronger Northern New England. And at a recent Manchester, N.H., workforce strategies event, AARP-N.H. State Director Todd Fahey urged HR professionals to talk with older employees about the possibility of continuing to work on a flexible basis after they hit the traditional retirement age of 65.

As a boomer and a career coach, I’m heartened by this turn of the events. Of course, I’m not so naïve as to think age discrimination is over. I agree with what Chris Farrell just said in a Next Avenue post: “Older workers still face a serious uphill climb in the job market in many respects.”

So how can employers do a better job of finding, retaining and supporting older job applicants and employees?

To find out, I interviewed Greg Voorheis, the mature worker program coordinator and Governor’s Award coordinator for the state of Vermont. I also watched a video he conducted with executives from the 2017 Governor's Award winner, Chroma Technology Group, a manufacturing firm in the biotech space, based in Bellows Fall, Vt. Incidentally, workers 55 and over currently make up nearly 30% of Vermont's workforce.

7 Tips for Supporting Older Workers and Job Seekers

Here are seven tips from Voorheis and Chroma:

1. Advertise job openings in newspapers in addition to online outlets. “One of the things we’ve learned over the years is that the mature population still really likes written material, like newspapers,” says Voorheis.

The Chroma Technology Group advertises its openings in print and welcomes hard copy applications to accommodate people who might not be comfortable applying online.

2. Display photos and videos of older people in recruitment marketing materials. That helps make it very clear that all ages are welcome to apply.

3. Cut down on ageism by using a group-interview model. HR departments are often staffed by younger workers, and that can result in unnecessary age bias — conscious or otherwise. This is why Chroma uses teams of four to eight people to do its hiring. “That way, no one person’s perspective carries too much weight. And if there are biases, they are minimized,” says the company's HR director, Angela Earle Gray.

4. Encourage mentoring. When older workers mentor younger workers, that helps the employees and it’s good for the company, too.

“Experience is an important thing to pass on,” says Chroma President Paul Millman. “Work habits, ways of doing things, and attitudes towards work all mature over time.”

Chroma uses peer work trainers to both help onboard employees and to continue mentoring them until they’re able to demonstrate competency in their new roles.

5. Provide ample training for older workers. Experienced employees are usually eager to get training that will keep their skills sharp and make them more employable. Yet sometimes employers hesitate to provide it because they worry about the return on investment for workers who might retire soon. Chroma takes a different tack by encouraging all workers to seek training opportunities.

“If you can show us how that is going to benefit you, we’ll find a way to get you that training, or something similar,” says Gray.

6. Offer flexible work arrangements. Voorheis says seasonal work, such as the snowbird programs offered at IBM, can be especially attractive to older workers.

Even though Chroma prefers employees to work full-time, it offers telecommuting and flextime to accommodate workers’ needs. And when staffers have needed to go part-time for a stretch, the company has tried to make that work. “We’re not fond of ridding ourselves of employees,” says Millman.

Sabbaticals are another popular option at Chroma. Long-term employees have the option to take an extended leave, for up to 11 weeks. The leave is unpaid, but the company continues to pay for medical and dental coverage.

7. Provide a wide range of benefits. Chroma also offers generous retirement benefits, company stock and a variety of wellness programs, including reimbursement for gym memberships and fitness programs. It runs monthly employee education programs, too, on topics like retirement planning, wellness and advance-care planning.

“We take very good care of mature workers at Chroma,” says Gray. “But it was never a conscious choice to do that. The conscious choice was to take very good care of all our employees.”

Voorheis echoes that sentiment, saying: “Good behaviors and programs that benefit mature workers benefit workers of all ages

11 Sneaky Ways Companies Get Rid Of Older Workers

We found an article from a few years back that seems more true now than ever! Check it out!

Three friends of mine have lost their jobs this year under the pretense of a reorganization or been told that their positions were being eliminated. All are extremely accomplished professionals in their 50s. Is this the latest way companies are getting rid of older workers?

I asked Donna Ballman, a Florida employment lawyer and author of the book, Stand Up For Yourself Without Getting Fired: Resolve Workplace Crises Before You Quit, Get Axed or Sue the Bastards, to answer that question, and offer insights about some of the stealth ways companies are ditching older workers. Little did I imagine that she would come up with 11 scenarios. Check this list to see if any of them sound familiar. Then take the steps she recommends to protect yourself.

Ballman's blog is Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home and she tweets as @EmployeeAtty. Her past articles for FORBES include, “Ten Things Your Boss Doesn’t Want You To Know.”

By Donna Ballman

One of the most common excuses used to get rid of older workers is “job elimination.”

Older workers are still suffering in the aftermath of the Great Recession. More than half the people aged 50 and older who participated in a recent AARP survey said they had either experienced or witnessed age discrimination in the workplace. Yet four out of five Americans over 50 say that they are going to have to delay their retirement plans and work well into their golden years. These two factors together have created a crisis for baby boomers.

Companies looking to ditch older employees can be creative in the ways they try to avoid age discrimination claims. Here are 11 of their sneakiest ploys.

1. Job elimination. One of the most common excuses used to get rid of older employees is “job elimination.” However, that may just be an excuse for what is really age discrimination. If the company is not really eliminating the job, just changing the title and putting someone younger is your former position, you may have an age discrimination claim.

2. Layoff. The company is supposed to attach to a layoff notice a list of other employees included and excluded from the layoff, along with their ages. Employers can be sneaky about the way they put together these reports. Some will show only select departments or specific job titles, which don’t give the whole picture. More often, they’ll include a few under-40 employees to make the bloodletting look less like age discrimination.

Still, if you are selected for layoff and younger, less-qualified employees at your level are not, you might have an age discrimination claim. If you’re part of a one-person or small “layoff” and you can show that younger people are not being included, then you may be able to prove age discrimination.

3. Suddenly stupid. If, after years of great performance reviews, you’re getting reprimanded for things everyone does, or being nitpicked for things the company didn’t care about before, it’s possible that the company is gearing up for what I call the “suddenly stupid defense.” They’re building a case to get rid of you for poor performance – trying to show a “legitimate reason” other than age for firing you. If you’re being targeted for write-ups when younger employees do the same things and aren’t written up, you may have an age discrimination claim.

4. Threatening your pension. I’ve seen cases where the company threatened that if the employee didn’t retire right away, it would look for ways to go after that worker’s pension. That’s a scary threat, but it may be a hollow one. First of all, few people have what would be considered a “pension” (a lump sum paid out every month). Most people have 401(k)s or similar savings plans that your employer can’t touch.

Your employer may claim that you can lose your right to your vested pension if you’re fired “for cause,” but it’s not that easy. You have appeal rights if they deny your benefits, and you can sue if you aren’t satisfied with the administrator’s decision. If you’re being threatened, it’s time to run speedy-quick to an employment lawyer in your state who handles claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act or ERISA – the law governing employee pension plans and other employee benefits.

5. Early retirement. One way employers get rid of older employees is offering a package that includes incentives to take early retirement. Some of these packages are too good to pass up on, so if you are offered one, consider it carefully. If you turn it down, remember you can still be fired at will. However, if the company only fires the older folks, you might have an age discrimination claim. If the early retirement is involuntary, such as when the only alternative offered is being fired, then it probably violates age discrimination laws.

6. Mandatory retirement age. If your employer still has a mandatory retirement age, it’s probably breaking the law. There are exceptions for firefighters and law enforcement. There is also a very limited exemption for employees who are at least 65 years old, who were bona fide executives or high-level policy-makers for their last two years, and who received an immediate nonforfeitable retirement benefit of at least $44,000.

7. Cutting job duties. One way to force older employees out is to cut job duties, limiting your authority and humiliating you with low-level tasks. You may have age an discrimination claim if this happens. So don’t just quit in disgust. (See "Is It Better To Quit Or Get Fired?”)

8. Isolation. Cutting you out of meetings, excluding you from lunches, and sticking you in a cubicle far from the action is another way employers try to get older employees to quit. If only younger employees are being included in activities from which you are excluded, this is evidence of age discrimination.

9. Denying promotions or opportunities for advancement. It’s illegal for an employer to deny you a promotion just because they think you’ll retire soon. Cutting job duties and isolating you are sneaky ways for them to claim you don’t have the experience or qualifications to get a promotion or to advance in the company. If your opportunities are limited after you hit one of those age milestones, it’s time to document what is happening and see whether they are also targeting younger employees for similar treatment.

10. Cutting hours. Another way to put senior employees under duress is to cut hours to the bone. Starving you to death is a way to force you to quit. Here, too, look around and see if older employees are being targeted.

11. Harassment. Cutting hours and job duties, isolating you and assigning menial tasks are all forms of harassment. Other examples of age-based harassment are: calling you the “old man,” or “old lady”; constantly asking when you’re going to retire; saying you’re senile; or making other comments related to age.

Follow the company’s policy for reporting harassment. I suggest you do that in writing. Title this document, “Formal Complaint of Age-Based Harassment and Discrimination.” Describe how you’re being singled out for treatment different than younger coworkers. Note any ageist comments that have been made to you; any other older employees being targeted; and whether there are any witnesses or evidence. Give the company a chance to investigate. If they don’t remedy the situation or if the harassment continues, it might be time to contact an employment lawyer.

If there are signs at work that you’re being targeted because of your age, make sure you document everything. Take steps to protect yourself before it’s too late.

Job Search Strategies for Older Workers

I'm always a little surprised at how young can be considered old by employers. In some industries, especially high-tech, even mid-thirties can be considered old. In fact, I spoke to one computer programmer who described the workers in his office who were over thirty as “old.” Unfortunately for older job seekers, the older you are, the longer it can take to get a job and the harder it can be to get hired.

What can you do to address age discrimination and promote your candidacy for employment? There are strategies older job seekers can implement to help expedite a job search and to find gainful, and meaningful, employment. 

Stand Out in the Job Market

Despite all the skills and experience that you bring to the table, you will still need to convince employers that you are the right person for the job. However, you also have a number of qualities that make you very hirable. Here are some tips for standing out in this competitive job market:

Emphasize your experience. Older job seekers have so much experience they can draw on. If they have been previously employed, they have decades of work experience. This work history is something younger workers simply do not have. Highlight your years of experience in your job materials and interviews.

Highlight your skills. Make a list of all of the skills you have developed, both in the workplace and outside of work. Then, look at job listings in the fields you want. Circle any skills on your own list that fit the requirements of the job. Pay particular attention to the transferable skills you have (such as communication or managerial skills) that will be useful in almost any job. Also think about skills and qualities you have as a result of your years of experience.

Whether or not you have been in the labor force recently, you likely have qualities gained from experience that employers will want. For example, studies have shownthat employees over 50 are particularly reliable, detail-oriented, and patient. They also have strong leadership skills.

Consider developing new skills. Think about any skills that will be necessary for the job, but that you either lack or have not used in a while. Take some time to develop these skills. For example, if many jobs in your field now require some experience with coding, consider taking a class. There are many free classes online for various skills, particularly in technology. 

Network. Even though you likely already have a number of contacts in your field, you can always make more. Consider joining (or rejoining) a professional association in your field. Revamp your LinkedIn profile. Send a letter to your friends and family and let them know about your job search. Networking is an ideal way to make connections that could lead to a job.

Follow your passion. Especially if you are beginning a second career, try to find a job that allows you to fulfill a lifelong passion. Perhaps you have always wanted to work with kids – if so, then search for a job as a teacher.

Maybe you have always had a woodworking hobby – consider a job as a furniture finisher. Think carefully about what you want to do with this period of your life, and follow your passion!

Age-Proof Your Resume and Cover Letter

One way to overcome the perception that your age is an issue is to age-proof and edit your resume. Limiting what you include on your resume, from a chronological perspective, can help job seekers avoid the stigma of being considered "too old" by a prospective employer. Make sure your references to job skills and accomplishments use contemporary vocabulary. For example, you should use the term “formatted documents” rather than “typed documents.”

Your cover letter is critical, as well. Review these cover letter tips for older job seekers to learn what to include in your cover letter, how to showcase your skills, and how to effectively market your candidacy to employers.

When writing your resume and your cover letters, there's no need to mention every job you've ever had. Include only the most recent positions and, if you attended college, don't list your graduation dates.

Update Your Professional Image

You can strategically write your resume and cover letter, but you can't change the basic facts - your actual age and your employment history are etched in stone. However, there are ways you can work on your appearance when you are job searching. And that can make a significant difference when you're interviewing. Here's how to update your job search image.

Ace a Job Interview

Even though employers can't legally ask you directly about your age, they sometimes ask questions during a job interview to try to determine how old you are. Here are some age-related interview questions and advice on how to respond. Anticipate these questions and have non-defensive, upbeat answers. Review tips and advice for successful interviewing for older seekers, including how to make experience an asset, what to wear, how to address age issues, and how to stay positive at a time when interviewing can be especially challenging.

Consider a Career Change

It can be easier than you might think to change careers. Here's advice on how to successfully implement a mid-life career change. Also consider “try before you buy” contract work in order to reduce the risk of hiring you for the employer.

Get Job Search Help

If you're struggling with your job search, consider seeking assistance. There are no-cost programs provided by OneStop Career Centers, non-profit groups, and local libraries, for example, that can assist. Also, seek out employers who advertise the fact that they value life experience in their hiring strategies. Some companies candidly do not value older workers, but many others do.

Don't Give Up

Keep in mind that it's not just you who is having a challenging job search. The Federal Reserve reports that most of the increase in employment since 2000 (approximately 17 million jobs) has been among workers aged 55 and older. In 2017, 39% of people 55 and over were working, compared to 31% in 2000. The increase is due to the aging of the baby boomer generation and isn't expected to last. However, workers 55 and over are expected to be almost 24% of the workforce through 2027.

Job searching typically isn't always easy, regardless of how old you are. If you think age is hindering your job search, there are strategies you can use to address the situation. So, don't give up. It might take a while to find a job, but there are employers who understand the value of an older worker with maturity, life experience, and skills.

BY ALISON DOYLE

 Updated May 17, 2018