- Key Takeaways
- Why Working Matters
- Hiring Has Changed
- Refresh Your Skill Set
- Update
Your Resume - Network With Purpose
- Consider
Freelance Options - Expand Your
Search - Interview With Confidence
- Stay Active Online
- Unemployment Hits Hard
- Financial Impact Grows
- Fix The Positioning
- Career Coaching Helps
- Education And Retraining
- Further Guidance & Tools
- Next Steps
- Final Words
- Additional Resources
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Last updated: February 24, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Modernize fast: Update your skills, resume, and online presence to match today’s
hiring systems, including ATS filters andskills -based screening. - Targeted
search : Focus on fewer, better-fit roles and tailor each application to the job’s outcomes, not just your past responsibilities. - Network leverage: Use relationships to surface hidden opportunities, earn referrals, and shorten the time between applying and interviewing.
- Flexible options: Consider remote, hybrid, contract, or consulting work to keep income flowing while you pursue a longer-term role.
- Confidence matters: Prepare direct, calm answers for age-related concerns by emphasizing current
skills , adaptability, and measurable impact.
Why Working Matters
More people in their 50s and 60s are choosing to keep working to protect retirement plans, maintain benefits, and preserve quality of life. Being excluded from the workforce can create immediate financial pressure and long-term damage that’s hard to reverse.
Today’s
You’re over the age of 50 and intellectually or intuitively you know your age could be a factor in your job search.
Hiring Has Changed
If you’ve been out of the market for a while, the biggest adjustment is understanding how employers decide who gets seen. Many companies rely on
That means your job
Refresh Your Skill Set
Start with a blunt inventory of your current
- Close skill gaps: Pick one or two high-impact gaps and fix them quickly with courses, projects, or hands-on practice you can discuss in interviews.
- Show proof: Add short “results” bullets that reflect outcomes, tools used, and what improved because of your work.
- Stay current: Follow industry changes so you can speak naturally about trends, tools, and workflow shifts without sounding forced.
Build the real-world skills you need to stand out to employers hiring for entry-level roles with Chegg Skills. Select a career path below to access exclusive internships and gain real-world skills. Students who add top skills to their resume are 3x more likely to hear back from potential employers
Update Your Resume
Your resume should focus on recent impact, current tools, and the outcomes you deliver. Your resume should reflect your most recent experiences and
Practical rule: lead with the last 10–15 years in detail, and compress older roles into a short “Earlier Experience” section. If
Network With Purpose
Networking remains the fastest path to interviews, especially for experienced professionals. The point isn’t collecting contacts; it’s building warm pathways to roles, referrals, and real information about what the employer needs.
Leverage your contacts with a simple approach: reconnect with five people a week, ask smart questions about their
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Consider Freelance Options
If full-time
For many professionals, thinking about freelancing or consulting becomes the bridge: short projects, clear deliverables, and flexibility while you continue a targeted
Expand Your Search
Don’t limit your
As Remote work is increasingly common, you can broaden your
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Interview With Confidence
Older workers often worry about unspoken objections: pay expectations, “overqualification,” or assumptions about adaptability. Your job is to remove those worries without sounding defensive.
Brush up on your interview skills and prepare tight answers that focus on outcomes, teamwork, and learning speed. Keep your examples current, and be ready to explain why this role is the right fit now.
Stay Active Online
Your online footprint is often your second resume.
Regularly update your LinkedIn profile, engage with your network, and share relevant insights. You’re signaling that you’re in the game, not reminiscing about past wins.
Unemployment Hits Hard
Unemployment is rough at any age, but it can be especially disruptive later in a career when retirement timelines are tighter, and benefits matter more. In January 2026, about 1.28 million people age 55 and older were unemployed, roughly 17% of all unemployed workers.
Older workers also frequently report that their resumes are filtered out in favor of younger candidates, and many discover their job-seeking habits and technical
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Financial Impact Grows
Forced early retirement or unemployment can trigger a chain reaction: pulling from
Even households that can “get by” for a while often feel the psychological hit of losing structure and identity, which can make the
Fix The Positioning
If you’re struggling for traction, the issue is usually positioning, not effort. Employers hire to solve problems, and your materials must clearly connect your experience to the problems they have right now.
- Define your lane: Choose a clear target role and build a short value statement around outcomes, tools, and the type of problems you solve best.
- Trim the noise: Remove older, low-relevance details that can trigger age assumptions, and focus attention on recent, measurable impact.
- Use proof points: Add metrics, before-and-after results, and concrete examples that make your story credible fast.
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Career Coaching Helps
Some job searches stall because you can’t see your own blind spots. A career
Used well, coaching is not pep talk. It’s strategy: market positioning, interview practice, negotiation planning, and a realistic
Education And Retraining
Education and career retraining are often the fastest way to refresh credibility, especially when you need updated tools or a new lane. Short, practical programs can help you demonstrate current capability without spending years in school.
Penn Foster offers online programs from high school through bachelor’s degrees, including career tracks such as pharmacy technician, home remodeling and repair, and medical assistant/billing &
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Further Guidance & Tools
- Older Worker Support: Use U.S. Department of Labor resources to explore programs and protections that help experienced workers re-enter the workforce.
- Age-Friendly Jobs:
Search AARP for job-search guidance and tools tailored to older workers, including employer research and practical interviewing advice. - Labor Data: Check the BLS to track current unemployment levels and trends so your strategy reflects real market conditions, not assumptions.
- Remote Listings: Use FlexJobs to find vetted remote and hybrid roles that can expand options without requiring relocation.
- Resume Scoring: Try Jobscan to compare
your resume against job descriptions and improveATS alignment without rewriting everything from scratch.
Next Steps
- Target Roles: Identify three job titles you want, then collect ten postings and highlight repeated requirements you must match.
- Resume Refresh: Rewrite your top section and two recent roles using measurable outcomes, current tools, and keywords from your target postings.
- Weekly Networking: Schedule five outreach messages each week to reconnect, ask for market insight, and request one warm introduction.
- Skill Sprint: Choose one marketable skill gap and complete a short course or project within 21 days, then add proof to your profile.
- Interview Practice: Prepare three concise stories that show adaptability, results, and learning speed, then rehearse them until they feel natural.
Jobscan helps you optimize your resume for any job, highlighting the key experience and skills recruiters need to see.
Final Words
Getting hired later in your career is absolutely possible, but it requires a modern strategy that proves relevance, not just experience. Focus your
Additional Resources
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Feeling stuck or in need of a leg up? These tips, strategies, and resources can shorten your learning curve dramatically and get you on a new path for moving forward.
Mark Fiebert is a former finance executive who hired and managed dozens of professionals during his 30-plus-year career. He now shares expert job search, resume, and career advice on CareerAlley.com.
