The scene at a recent meeting of Experience Unlimited, a job service program of the state’s Economic Development Department, was enough to give one pause. At the front of the room stood David Andrade, a baby-faced recruiter for Aerotek Commercial Staffing Firm. Surrounding the Gen Y-er were job seekers old enough to be his parents and grandparents. And many of them had the same concern: Was his company, or any, for that matter, interested in hiring “experienced” workers, those of advanced age embarking on their second, third or even fourth career? It’s a question that may be moot in coming years. The void in the workforce that the 79 million baby boomers will leave as they reach retirement age may give companies little recourse, if they wish to keep going,but to employ the estimated 8 out of 10 boomers who say they’d rather work than retire. “Because of the graying of America, we’re not going to have an endless supply of people under 50 or 40 or 35. Many companies are going to turn to people who are older,” predicted Experience Unlimited head David Kearse. The oldest of the boomers turned 60 last year. Reseda resident Ursula Reeg, a participant in the Experience Unlimited program, agreed that the dwindling workforce will force businesses to consider hiring workers they might otherwise turn away. “Companies have no option but to embrace the experienced worker and what they can bring to the table,” she said. Andrade, for one, said that his company, which functions to provide staff for a variety of businesses, does not discriminate. “We get all walks of life,” he said. Aerotek’s only criteria “is that you have experience and are qualified.” While the company doesn’t have any particular platform to attract so-called mature workers, others, such as Apple One and many educational institutions, Woodbury University for one, have programs in place specifically for the experienced worker. “Age is not a factor anymore, as long as you’re driven and willing to learn,” asserted Christine Duque of Apple One’s marketing department. The staffing firm launched a program called Rehirement that specifically catered to those seeking to reenter the workplace after leaving the professional field to raise children or for other reasons. It has now been mainstreamed as just one of many services offered by Apple One. “Right now our employers are very savvy when it comes to realizing that older employees have a lot of value because they already have some basic knowledge and their work ethic is very different from (that of the younger) generation,” Duque said. She believes that older workers train well and are no longer technologically ignorant or inflexible, as is commonly thought. She also believes that experienced workers adapt well to various work environments. “Because they have had experience in the workplace, what makes them particularly valuable is that they know how to adapt to various workplaces,” Duque said. “They’re very adaptable to different work cultures or company cultures.” <!– Woodbury: Frank Frias –> Woodbury: Frank Frias Frank Frias, director of MBA recruitment at Woodbury University, said he realizes the value of experienced workers. That’s why the school is currently in the process of developing what is being tentatively called an Executive MBA program, designed for people with at least 10 to 15 years of work experience. “Being in an MBA program, you’re really learning from each other,” Frias said. “The experience that you have in the workplace, you really bring a new dimension. It’s essential to come into an MBA program with some kind of work experience.” Dr. Warren Washington, chief academic officer for the Southern California campus of the University of Phoenix, works, in part, to help 89 school districts recruit staff from among his institution’s student body. “They are anxious to get older adults to meet their requirements,” he said. Washington also said that he is finding, surprisingly, that the social service agencies he works with are hiring older students in larger numbers than younger students. Robin McCarthy, executive director of Women at Work in Pasadena, which serves women in both the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys and has a program specifically for people who seeking career transitions, said she is finding that retail and restaurant establishments often request more “seasoned” workers. Moreover, according to a survey conducted by Merrill Lynch in 2006, 75 percent of those 60 and older who sought employment found no trouble doing so. That older workers are successfully making career transitions comes as no surprise to Bobbi Yanke, supervisor and career counselor for the Jewish Vocational Service in West Hills. “There’s some incredible studies that show the value of a person who comes with much more stability and confidence and world knowledge,” she said. “A person who has experienced life a little bit more doesn’t panic if there’s an emergency. They’re not going to be out all night partying. They don’t have young children that might make them be absent from work. As far as dependability, perhaps a younger person doesn’t have the knowledge to adapt as readily. We feel that definitely there’s lots of opportunities for the midlife person.” Reeg hopes that his years of experience in the professional world will work in his favor. “Life experience and skills in the marketplace is honorable,” said Reeg. Because of their skills, mentoring capability and work ethic, Reeg says that older workers are financial assets rather than financial burdens. “People over 40 generally have a very good work ethic. They want to go to their jobs,” she said. “They have stability. They don’t want to leave. It’s a tremendous cost to companies to constantly keep replacing workers and an experienced worker is less likely to do the revolving door.” Experience Unlimited participant Paul Tipon of Northridge, 64, retired from the mortgage industry two years ago only to discover that he needed to return to the workforce to bolster his income. He hopes that his previous experience in aerospace works to his advantage. “In the aerospace industry, a lot of the baby boomers are retiring who have been in that industry for 20 to 40 years,” Tipon said. “They have a nice package they can retire on. I don’t have that. I can bring that experience and expertise back in again.”
