For Many Older Workers, Layoffs Mean Learning New Job-Search Skills

"Even in good times, it's substantially harder for older workers to find a job than it is for younger workers,” Johnson says.

The news is not all grim. Older workers have a lot of what employers want, says Ramona Schindelheim of the advocacy organization WorkingNation, including experience managing people, solving problems and working in teams.

Older candidates for jobs “may not even realize the value of the skills they have,” says Schindelheim.

The trick is getting a hiring manager to see that.

"It's a matter of how to help them showcase these things,” says Beth Hobbs, a career adviser in the Generations@Work program in Arapahoe County, Colorado.

That means boning up on such skills as how to write a résumé, use LinkedIn to job-search and network, and even set up the best lighting for an interview on Zoom.

"We have a lot of people who frankly haven't been in this position before,” Hobbs says. “They haven't looked for a job in 20 or 30 years."

Opportunities to gain new skills

A few have seized the opportunity to go back to school and learn entirely new trades. Mauricio Oliveira, 58, of Miami, who lost his job as a logistics manager for an international freight forwarder in April, has enrolled at Miami Dade College to study graphic design — a longtime avocation he hopes to turn into a new career.

"I never thought I'd go back to college,” says Oliveira. “But I think in the internet era, graphic design is a good idea."

Kim Coleman, 55, who previously worked as an executive assistant, says she may also end up taking classes toward certification to become a life coach or patient advocate.

"It's like starting from scratch,” she says.

Further education can take time and money, however, two things many older workers may not have.

"Mid-career and older workers have mortgages, kids in college, they're supporting older parents. They don't have the luxury of saying, ‘I'm going to take the next two years and acquire this new skill,’ even if it's in demand,” says Maria Heidkamp, director of the New Start Career Network, a Rutgers University program serving people 45 and over.

What they need most “are the technical skills to apply for a job, because it is virtual now, and that may be new for people,” says Forrester, in Tucson.

Very new, to one Washington, D.C.-area nonprofit executive and attorney in her 60s — she asked that her name not be used — who says she never before had to actively look for work. “I always networked to a job,” she says.

Now she's learning new ways to network: on Zoom and LinkedIn.

"In some ways it's the same skill set: how to speak comfortably and quickly in a concise way,” she says. “But what I didn't realize is how valuable LinkedIn has become."

Hal Rogoff, who is also in his 60s and lives in Maryland, has worked in fields as varied as public administration, finance and engineering. But he always got those jobs “by hearing something from a friend and hopping on it."

Looking for work now, he says, “requires a different approach. And I haven't done this for a long time.”

The competition for what jobs exist, meanwhile, “is really, really young,” Coleman says — especially in Austin, where she also lives. “They're coming out of school and starting work with really new technological skills that a lot of us in our 50s don't have."

To catch up, Coleman took a course in job-seeking strategies, part of the Digital Skills for Today's Jobs program at Austin Community College. Sixty percent of the people in the class are 50 and older, the college says.

"You've got to sell yourself,” she says. “You have to spell out your accomplishments. You have to make then quantitative. You have to have keywords in your résumé to match the description and show how qualified you are."

Childers took the same class. He's had a few interviews here and there since April, but his teenager, who just turned 16 and is proficient with digital technologies, landed six in just one week.

"My kiddo,” Childers says, “is outpacing me at job-hunting."