For Latinas Hit by Pandemic Job Loss, New Opportunities Are Emerging

Positioning yourself to land a job

These certificates, or microcredentials — which you can obtain online through free or inexpensive courses on sites such as MindEdge, Coursera and Udemy — will help to enhance your skills and professional profile, Weinstock says.

"They give you a certificate to demonstrate that you have mastered that particular skill. Then you can put that on your LinkedIn profile, your résumé [or] a job application to demonstrate that you have that skill set that an employer is going to be looking for,” she adds.

Being bilingual can also be a plus in a competitive job market.

Landing a job after age 50 can be a challenge. But with age comes experience, which can complement a valuable skill set that potential employers will appreciate.

"Age discrimination is a perennial problem. It's certainly something that AARP is fighting against all the time. We're working to educate employers about the value of older workers and all the things that they bring to the workplace,” Weinstock says. “One is to play up those soft skills that you have as an older worker to demonstrate that you are a problem solver, that you're calm under pressure, that you are a good listener, that you're empathetic. Those are really important skills. Pre-pandemic we would get calls from employers saying, ‘We're looking for older workers because we know they have these soft skills.'"

In addition to fighting age discrimination, AARP also helps people who meet certain requirements reenter the workforce.

"For over 30 years, AARP Foundation has run the Senior Community Service Employment Program, a community-service and work-based job training program for low-income adults age 55 and older,” says Lisa Marsh Ryerson, president of AARP Foundation, the charitable affiliate of AARP. “When you enroll in an SCSEP program, you're immediately partnered with another community organization to learn on-the-job skills training. The program is powering other nonprofits and communities. It's all about providing economic opportunity."

The importance of mentorship and networking

"Most women and men who succeed have had mentors along the way. They have had advisers, consultants, coaches. Nobody does anything alone, because nobody knows everything,” says Mariela Dabbah, a leadership and professional development coach for Hispanic women.

There are many training, leadership and mentoring programs, such as those offered by Dabbah through her consulting firm Red Shoe Movement, which aims to provide training and a mutual support network with other women seeking to take their careers to the next level.

If you're unemployed, networking is key to helping you land a job.

"Most people find their jobs through networking,” says Weinstock. “Continue to always build that network, so there's a set of people that you can reach out to say, ‘I'm unemployed, can you give me some advice? You're in a field that I want to be in, you work for a company that I want to get to know.’ And you then have to chart out different things that you can do to get to know an industry or an employer. So when we come out of this pandemic and companies are starting to hire again, they're going to remember, ‘Oh, yeah, that's that woman who contacted me. She was looking for a job. She seemed so enthusiastic. Let's call her and see if she might be interested in coming in for an interview.’ Use that network, find people who know people and make sure that you're out there."

Industries with projected growth potential

These are times of change, where entire industries have been hit hard by the pandemic. Disruptions in supply chains and in our way of getting work done have caused fluctuations in growth projections in multiple sectors. But employment analysts and the BLS see potential job growth in these fields:

• Laboratory technicians
• Pharmacy technicians
• Health care and home care workers
• Health care managers
• Software programmers and software quality control analysts and testers (a more highly paid field)
• Nurses
• General managers and operations managers

Also, the Walgreens and CVS pharmacy chains announced in December that they plan to hire 35,000 people to join their vaccination support teams at stores throughout the country. Both companies still have numerous openings listed on their job sites.

Although job hunting after 50 can seem daunting — especially during a pandemic — short-, medium- and long-term strategies can help you highlight and enhance your skills while you network with people in your target industry.

Verónica Villafañe is a multimedia journalist whose work has garnered multiple awards, including an Emmy. She has more than two decades of experience for television, print and online media outlets including Univision, Telemundo, CNN en Español, Fox11 in Los Angeles, the San Jose Mercury News and Forbes magazine. She is the founder and editor of MediaMoves.com, which covers Latinos in the U.S. media. She is a former national president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.