I'm a few months behind reading the New York Times Magazine, so I only recently saw the September 8th issue with the 
Robyn GreenspanPosted by Frank Loffa
01/23 @ 04:54 PM
01/23 @ 04:54 PM
Dear Robyn:
Enjoyed your comments regarding your trip to the top of the World Trade Center with Dad. I grew up in Elizabeth NJ and my Dad was an Ironworker and those trips to the work site are forever in my memory.
Tomorrow, I will attend the session sponsored by Execunet in Woodland Hills, CA. As a 58 year old with +35 years in the CPG Industry, I often wonder about age as you submit resumes in to the system!
Please keep in touch, I enjoy your work.
Cordially
Frank Loffa
Enjoyed your comments regarding your trip to the top of the World Trade Center with Dad. I grew up in Elizabeth NJ and my Dad was an Ironworker and those trips to the work site are forever in my memory.
Tomorrow, I will attend the session sponsored by Execunet in Woodland Hills, CA. As a 58 year old with +35 years in the CPG Industry, I often wonder about age as you submit resumes in to the system!
Please keep in touch, I enjoy your work.
Cordially
Frank Loffa
Posted by Steve
01/22 @ 07:32 PM
01/22 @ 07:32 PM
Here is another perfect example of why we are loosing middle management, technical and executive jobs in the US... and why everyone is in a grab for power and selling out....
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB
Posted by John Supplee
01/21 @ 03:05 PM
01/21 @ 03:05 PM
Look forward to the insights from the report.
Posted by Steve
01/20 @ 08:39 PM
01/20 @ 08:39 PM
Robyn,
I am currently 51 years old and have been working since the age of 11 years old when I started helping in our family business I have been and worked in every type of company you can think of because of the nature of the family business from tuna factories to high tech pharma. Since that age I have had two career changes, attended college, graduated, worked for a few major companies and opened two businesses. I would say that I am an expert on the job search thats why I started my own businesses. After being semi retired in 2003 tragedy struck my family and basically wiped out everything I had earned and saved over the course of my life. I woke up one day penniless, distraught and alone, but soon found many friends that were in similar shape or even worse off thanks to the great recession and the policies that protect corporations.
I have been fortunate enough to have been able to pick up contract work as a project manager, but here too its been difficult to get hired on due to age and I am currently on the move again looking for new work. Although I am qualified and experienced enough to run the companies I have worked for; and in some cases better educated than the CEO's that run them, I can not make any head way into any real upper management or perm positions at my current age. Although surrounded by twenty and thirty something aged employees, I have out worked them, out thought them, and received numerous thank you letters from their clients I managed projects for. I don't look my age fortunately, but after listening to CFO's and other managers it really seems to boil down to money and impressions.
The impressions that I get although they may not be entirely true and may depend on the type of industry, is that older employees with lots of experience cost more, they are not as up to date on technology, although the technology the twenty and thirty something employee is using was designed by their 50 something co- workers. They are seen as not as creative and are just waiting to retire, they don't want to set the world on fire, plus they are not naive.
Now being a previous business owner and having also worked in many trades over the years, older people used to be respected in the trades practices. But with everything being about money and risk, workers comp and health insurance does cost more and I have experienced this in my own business. Also if you are self insured corporation you want younger healthy workers that are not candidates for heart attacks and disease or foreign workers that you don't pay any benefits to. Risk from the stand point of age discrimination lawsuits is also a factor. Companies are narrow minded and only want a lean bottom line with low risk and high returns. I mean cut out "senior" management and you can get two new less expensive higher performance employees with the latest technology skills for the cost of one "senior" employee without the risk, or four foreign workers and you don't have to have pension management costs because you don't give pensions to gen x or foreign workers.
When do I see this changing?
Not in time to make too much of a real difference to executive and middle management "senior" employees who have been displaced unless the economy turns rather quickly. Those close to retirement if they have any saving left will retire early, this will just open the door to advancement to the younger manager to move up. Even venture capital groups lend money to gen x before the baby boomers. I know, I work in silicon valley and see this everyday, high school students getting $500K seed money to start a software company, 30 something entrepreneurs getting millions for a software or social media project that in the end doesn't make any real money. There is a lot of disproportional activities that take place against older workers. although if the economy does turn around quickly and expansion starts to take place the older worker may become in demand, that is " if and I say if " the government stops allowing the importing cheap employees from other countries in the US to work for the greedy corporations.... I have heard the non sense about the shortages of qualified Americans its an out right lie.... I have seen American workers in management and technology positions train and be replaced by foreign contractors, the same foreign contractors they trained....
You see its all about PROFIT and not about people..... I have been seeing this my entire life...
Lets talk about transferable skills... they don't seem to exist to many of the companies I have submitted resumes to, the same with my executive level friends.
This is a corporate and government issue there needs to be tax incentives to hire older workers. I mean I see people working that are in their 70's who cant live on their social security checks and they must spend their 401k retirement by law or be taxed on it! Companies with over a certain level of employees should be required to hire a percentage of older workers and executives. Incentives for training would be beneficial and we need to stop replacing American workers with foreign workers on any level.
Being unemployed these days is just too costly I have opted to take what I can while looking for that perfect C level position... If the unemployment level and exodus of American companies doesn't stop many people will be permanently unemployed. The best way I have found to land contracts is to put down a rate thats more competitive than the going rate.
We live in a fixed, rigged system set up for the corporations by the corporations and I feel its only going to get worse....
-Steve
I am currently 51 years old and have been working since the age of 11 years old when I started helping in our family business I have been and worked in every type of company you can think of because of the nature of the family business from tuna factories to high tech pharma. Since that age I have had two career changes, attended college, graduated, worked for a few major companies and opened two businesses. I would say that I am an expert on the job search thats why I started my own businesses. After being semi retired in 2003 tragedy struck my family and basically wiped out everything I had earned and saved over the course of my life. I woke up one day penniless, distraught and alone, but soon found many friends that were in similar shape or even worse off thanks to the great recession and the policies that protect corporations.
I have been fortunate enough to have been able to pick up contract work as a project manager, but here too its been difficult to get hired on due to age and I am currently on the move again looking for new work. Although I am qualified and experienced enough to run the companies I have worked for; and in some cases better educated than the CEO's that run them, I can not make any head way into any real upper management or perm positions at my current age. Although surrounded by twenty and thirty something aged employees, I have out worked them, out thought them, and received numerous thank you letters from their clients I managed projects for. I don't look my age fortunately, but after listening to CFO's and other managers it really seems to boil down to money and impressions.
The impressions that I get although they may not be entirely true and may depend on the type of industry, is that older employees with lots of experience cost more, they are not as up to date on technology, although the technology the twenty and thirty something employee is using was designed by their 50 something co- workers. They are seen as not as creative and are just waiting to retire, they don't want to set the world on fire, plus they are not naive.
Now being a previous business owner and having also worked in many trades over the years, older people used to be respected in the trades practices. But with everything being about money and risk, workers comp and health insurance does cost more and I have experienced this in my own business. Also if you are self insured corporation you want younger healthy workers that are not candidates for heart attacks and disease or foreign workers that you don't pay any benefits to. Risk from the stand point of age discrimination lawsuits is also a factor. Companies are narrow minded and only want a lean bottom line with low risk and high returns. I mean cut out "senior" management and you can get two new less expensive higher performance employees with the latest technology skills for the cost of one "senior" employee without the risk, or four foreign workers and you don't have to have pension management costs because you don't give pensions to gen x or foreign workers.
When do I see this changing?
Not in time to make too much of a real difference to executive and middle management "senior" employees who have been displaced unless the economy turns rather quickly. Those close to retirement if they have any saving left will retire early, this will just open the door to advancement to the younger manager to move up. Even venture capital groups lend money to gen x before the baby boomers. I know, I work in silicon valley and see this everyday, high school students getting $500K seed money to start a software company, 30 something entrepreneurs getting millions for a software or social media project that in the end doesn't make any real money. There is a lot of disproportional activities that take place against older workers. although if the economy does turn around quickly and expansion starts to take place the older worker may become in demand, that is " if and I say if " the government stops allowing the importing cheap employees from other countries in the US to work for the greedy corporations.... I have heard the non sense about the shortages of qualified Americans its an out right lie.... I have seen American workers in management and technology positions train and be replaced by foreign contractors, the same foreign contractors they trained....
You see its all about PROFIT and not about people..... I have been seeing this my entire life...
Lets talk about transferable skills... they don't seem to exist to many of the companies I have submitted resumes to, the same with my executive level friends.
This is a corporate and government issue there needs to be tax incentives to hire older workers. I mean I see people working that are in their 70's who cant live on their social security checks and they must spend their 401k retirement by law or be taxed on it! Companies with over a certain level of employees should be required to hire a percentage of older workers and executives. Incentives for training would be beneficial and we need to stop replacing American workers with foreign workers on any level.
Being unemployed these days is just too costly I have opted to take what I can while looking for that perfect C level position... If the unemployment level and exodus of American companies doesn't stop many people will be permanently unemployed. The best way I have found to land contracts is to put down a rate thats more competitive than the going rate.
We live in a fixed, rigged system set up for the corporations by the corporations and I feel its only going to get worse....
-Steve
Posted by Frankie Puthoff
01/20 @ 05:24 PM
01/20 @ 05:24 PM
I have been an independent consultant
Since 2005. In the last year I have been
fighting the economy and losing.
I always enjoyed and was fulfilled by the
executive positions I held as an employee
and I am ready to return to such
employment , with my newly acquired
business acumen.
Since 2005. In the last year I have been
fighting the economy and losing.
I always enjoyed and was fulfilled by the
executive positions I held as an employee
and I am ready to return to such
employment , with my newly acquired
business acumen.
Posted by vikas singh
01/20 @ 04:07 PM
01/20 @ 04:07 PM
hi am vikas singh from india (DELHI).i have done my MCA from gurughasi das university in 2007.bassicly am from chattisgarh (INDIA).but right now am stay in gurgaon. there r am working with retail indusry as TEAM LEADER but am not satisfied from this job actually am looking only IN I.T. SECTOR. Recently i have joined in NIIT FOR learning JAVA TECHNOLOGY like hybernate,jdbc,core java,Advanced java and connectivity etc.
Posted by Jack Milfrod Ford
01/20 @ 04:03 PM
01/20 @ 04:03 PM
Because, I was impliedly being told I was past my prime, I tired of looking to go back in-house for an exectuive position & therefore stopped looking & instead began to build my internet law practice, specializing in business/contracts/transactions & the electronic fund transfer arena. Over the past couple of years, as I have worked with & provided legal counsle to corporaitons, I am reminded time & again how much more experienced & knowledgeable I am than many of the younger executives I deal with. They may be smarter & more nimle than me in operating their smart phones & texting, but they lean on me at times for basic business "smarts" to get a deal done, mitigate liability or put out business fires. Nevertheless, the messsage I received when I transitioned from my last EVP/CLO position was I too gray for these types of companies to ever consider me to help make them be succesful.
Posted by Joshua Shoresh
01/20 @ 03:23 PM
01/20 @ 03:23 PM
Thanks. I'm very interested in reading this special report.
Posted by Theresa Merry
01/20 @ 11:42 AM
01/20 @ 11:42 AM
I understand that there may be bias against aging workers. However, a candidate with a positive energetic attitude; plus experience spanning over thirty years is priceless in these times. Many companies have gotten ridden of the dead weight in the last two years and are now feeling the pain. The lack of experience of hiring the younger and inexperienced candidate has its limits. The over fifty crowd is not out of the game!
Posted by patti holt
01/20 @ 10:54 AM
01/20 @ 10:54 AM
Thank you for providing this report
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Lessons learned from and about six-figure leadership and executive career management
