If you're a Baby Boomer, the biggest challenge in looking for work may come with reimagining your career. You don't have to completely reinvent yourself, but you may have to adapt to a new environment — whether that means working in a new field, working for yourself, or moving to find a job.
The good news is that the jobless rate for Boomers is far less than for the overall population. Unemployment for people age 55 and older tapered off in October, as a higher-than-expected 171,000 jobs were added to the economy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Nationally, the unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 percent to 7.9 percent last month — but the jobless rate fell to 6.1 percent for men 55-plus in October and 5.5 percent for women 55-plus.
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That said, there are still 1.9 million people age 55 and older out of work. Executive recruiters say Boomers looking for work should keep these six points in mind:
- Be open to starting over. It is a lot tougher to change careers unless you are open to starting from scratch, including dropping salary down to a "starting-salary" level.
- Build off your fundamental skills. Focus on skills that are transferable from industry to industry. For example, it may be much easier to go from being a marketing professional at a bank to a marketing professional at a hospital than it is to go from being a banker to a nurse.
- Sell your experience. Emphasize to potential employers that you can hit the ground running, critical for companies that want people who can contribute immediately without a lot of training time and cost.
- Move to another area with a lower cost of living and greater job prospects. Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas are among the top 10 states in terms both low cost of living and job creation, according to CNBC's 2012 survey of America's Top States for Business. Many financial advisers say when you're out of work and facing a cash crunch, there is often nothing more powerful than relocating from a high-cost-of-living area to a low-cost one.
