 |
| Jane Genova |
In “The Godfather,” middle-aged crooner Johnny Fontane asks Vito Corleone’s help for a Hollywood comeback. The Godfather shakes Fontane back into believing in himself and proceeds with an idea. Essentially that’s what a professional comeback is about for you who are over 50: grabbing hold of self-confidence and experimenting with promising ideas.
Coming back from what
Amid the perfect storm of geopolitical uncertainty, economic volatility, technological disruption, cost-efficiency mandates, the blame game and age bias, there’s plenty to come back from. You might have experienced the collapse of your sector/your enterprise; layoffs resulting in unemployment/underemployment; demotions; being taken off accounts; having fewer people reporting to you; loss of influence and power; bouts of illness; falloff in your creativity; retirement that you have to unretire from; and/or scandal.
The peculiar 21st century
Of course, this need for a comeback is nothing new. Fontane is a fictionalized version of Frank Sinatra, whose career also went south.
What is new is the surge in the number of those over 50 requiring a comeback during the unusual third decade of this century. It’s binary now: Either you’re in demand or you’re out. The game is to get back in demand.
Shooting yourself in the foot
Being professionally stalled, documents University of Iowa researcher Yiduo Shao, could be self-inflicted. For example, observes Shao:
“[Those aging] tend to prioritize emotionally gratifying experiences and valuable social relationships over information acquisition or development-oriented goals.”
Of course, as Ladders found, 36 percent of you believe you are a victim of age bias. Pro Publica research indicates you probably are. So? Blaming age bias has no ROI. Incidentally, The Great Flattening in which you might have lost your middle-manager job isn’t necessarily targeted at older workers.
What’s smart is to ignore your aging and flip the script. In a 2022 BusinessInsider interview Paul Weiss 60-something chair Brad Karp alluded to the limits of his age. He was spot-on. Soon enough, though, he disrupted the law firm and generated record profits. Age is often just age.
Blessing of financial cushioning
Actually, age can open new professional options. You could be receiving Social Security, Medicare and a pension.
Those, for example, provide a financial platform for taking risks such as launching an enterprise. Paychex found that entrepreneurship among the over-50 has soared 50 percent since 2007 and the Harvard Business Review reports that the success rate improves with age.
Or, you could exit your long-term “home” in industry or an agency for another kind of job. In itself that can shake off the last few years when things might have stalled.
Piloting the way back
Following are six ideas you can try out.
Acknowledge what is, own it, use it.
A universal among career experts, including those at LinkedIn, is for you to accept the current reality: You’re in limbo or worse and need to acknowledge your part in how you got there.
It’s the critical step back because there’s nothing to gain by trauma-looping about external factors that supposedly did you in. The past can’t be retrofitted. But you can change and create a present and future.
It’s a cliché but clichés endure because they contain insight: The pickle you’re in probably signals that the time has come to pivot. That could be anything from a different way to interact in the organization to developing new skills to becoming an entrepreneur. Meanwhile, you should be learning from the pain and integrating that into the new professional you.
It had been after setbacks that Steve Jobs and Bill Clinton came into their own.
Network differently
Most professional opportunities come from what Mark Granovetter called the “strength of weak ties.” In his research in the 1970s, Granovetter found that casual acquaintances, not our professional associates, are the source of the majority of work leads and how to approach them.
In contrast, those on your usual networks, since they are competing with you, might withhold that data. Or, they don’t inform you because they pigeonhole you as an old-line media pro, not an influencer with influencers. Outsiders are more apt to figure you can do just about anything in public relations.
Take the time to jaw-jaw about your professional life with neighbors—Joe the security guard in your trophy building, or your insurance agent.
Size up opportunity and pounce on it.
Strategic planning, as least the highly detailed version, is 20th century. In the current chaos that’s a time-waste. Some describe the turmoil as the collapse of the old order. You have to take advantage of what opportunities are rising from the dust and reset yourself for them.
This can be as fundamental as proposing a stretch assignment for yourself. It could be beefing up the organization’s technological expertise. About three-fourths of businesses indicate they’ll be embracing big data, cloud computing and AI. An aggressive leveraging of technology already is among the top trends in public relations.
Or you can start a niche firm specializing in that or other in-demand know-how. Professional anonymous network Reddit Public Relations often posts on solo entrepreneurs earning three-figure hourly rates for consulting.
Change lanes.
Hope keeps humans going. It’s no surprise then that many develop the magical thinking that their distressed employment situation or their long-term unemployment situation will improve. What else can keep you stuck in illusion is the realization, which I discuss in this article, of how much of an ordeal career change is. Gone poof can be your knowledge base, marketability of well-honed skills, contacts and confidence. Therefore, you don’t investigate shifting to another line of work. Yet one in 16 of you will have to, as they say, change lanes by 2030.
Such a pivot can itself be the comeback. Post-prison, Wall Streeter Michael Milken repositioned himself as a philanthropist. That deleted the past from the collective memory bank.
Also there’s the LinkedIn finding that what's stalling your career could just be a talent mismatch—force-fitting the square peg in the round hole. A shift may catapult you into unanticipated success.
Be willing to take steps backwards.
Professional mobility, including comebacks, is a process. Often that entails tradeoffs such as reduced compensation and the critical questioning by others of your moves. You may no longer be treated as a winner.
In the 2024 book “Nobody Cares About Your Career,” former Barstool Sports CEO Erika Ayers Badan tells how she switched at Fidelity from the high-paying prestigious slot of legal assistant to the low-paying no-status one of marketing assistant. In the latter, she developed what would be her core competence. During the transition she received no support.
Differentiate yourself
The situation for much of professional life, services and products is glut. To come back you have to stand out. Even Kraft Mac & Cheese has lost market share because it’s a brand stuck in the middle. What is gaining market share are clearly defined premium (yes, consumers are willing to pay more) and discount brands.
You need to figure out how to position and package yourself in a way that gets, holds and grows attention. A model is how influencers build a following. Analyze what they are doing.
Longer runway
The contours of the career that got stuck or collapsed in your 50s or 60s probably won’t be the one or ones that fit in your 70s and 80s. Because of want or need, that longer timeframe for working could become the standard runway for earning a good living. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the number of people working beyond age 75 has increased almost 54 percent from 2010 to 2020 and is projected to increase almost 97 percent by 2030. Comebacks—yes, multiple—seem baked into the present and future of work.
***
Career Coach Jane Genova provides end-to-end services, ranging from diagnosis of the challenges and fix-it strategies to preparation of resumes/cover letters/LinkedIn profiles and how to gain control of an interview. She specializes in over-50 work issues. Her edge is a background in marketing communications. For a confidential complimentary consultation please text/phone 203-468-8579 or email [email protected]. Remote and in-person.
While career change has become standard, career-shifters still face headwinds during the process. Here's how you can boost your odds for success when you switch to a new career.
It's more important than ever to get the edge in job interviews. Here's how make yourself stand out from the other applicants for a position.
Downsizing to a lower-cost-of-living area can pay big dividends, but here are a few things that might make you want to reconsider such a move.
Turbulence in the PR field could trigger a blossoming of entrepreneurship. Here are some pointers for those who decide to go their own way, and start their own firms.
With corporate mergers, restructuring, revenue declines and AI becoming the new normal, the focus for many workers in PR and communications has shifted from furthering careers to just being able to keep on making a good living. Here are some pointers for handling that instability.
Have a comment? Send it to 
No comments have been submitted for this story yet.