Can You Afford Spare Change?

It might be time to pay the fiddler

The only thing in life that doesn’t change is that things will always change. Change is inevitable. Change is all around us. Change never goes away. We can’t change that.

Certainly the way that people – people of all ages, but especially people who are older – look for a job has changed. If you haven’t figured that out yet, the way(s) you looked for a job when you were in your 20s and 30s is vastly different from the ways you job search today.

Change for the better?

Many experts – recruiters, hiring mangers, HR professionals and others – feel that this wave of change has not yet completely passed us. And with the emergence of AI, they’re convinced that more change is on the horizon.

So how does an older job seeker confront the radically different job-search environment? Well, baseball holds many secrets of life. Take a cue from the Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane, who in the movie Moneyball said, “Adapt or die.”

We’re going to guess that the latter is not a viable or enviable option. That leaves “adapt” and in order to adapt, one has to face the music and be prepared to change. Jeez, that sounds tough. And it is.

Making the kinds of changes that will be necessary to successfully navigate the job-search world just may end up being the most difficult part of your job search.

So ask yourself: what comes with change? Pain? Sometimes. Learning new “tricks”? Not unlikely. How about disruption? Change intrinsically alters the status quo. And that kind of disruption creates opportunity.

Opportunity for everyone? No. There is only opportunity for those who are strong enough, smart enough, insightful enough, creative enough and bold enough to seize it. Some people refer to this as a “side-door strategy.” All it is a new way to approach a problem… or to deal with change.

But, before you can seize such an opportunity… you just might have to change.

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