Over-50

Retirement: (Mostly) Unafforable in Any State in US

Retirement has passed the threshold of affordability.

That's even in low-cost cities such as Cleveland, Ohio. According to GoBankingRates.com, there, over-65 households need $38,147 annually to just make it.

And retiring has become nearly impossible for households over-65 in locations such as New York City, where they need about $100k a year.

Here are more details in MarketWatch. 

The conclusion: Maybe retiring shouldn't be on a bucket list. Instead of envisioning total freedom from work during The New Aging, it might be more realistic financial planning to just save for some fun travel on vacations from work or between gig contracts.

More and more of the assignments for my two communications businesses are associated with preparing work-search materials for those who assumed they were retired.

Here is my guide, free to download, on how to navigate that shift.

And, here, also free to download, is my book on how to get, hold, and move on to better work, no matter one's age Download Outwitting ageism.

One day those who have retired wake up and have that brutal moment of clarity: They are sliding into debt. To pay off that debt and prevent its return in the future, they need more funds coming in.

Yesterday, a 67-year-old currently unmarried male came to my office. During the past week we had discussed options for marketing services he could provide. The best shot was a niche within higher education.

For several hours we knocked out the must-needed promotional material, then moved on to retrofitting his social networks. The next step would be to set up a website, along with a blog. This weekend in the loop will parachute a friend of his to produce podcasts for the enterprise. 

Like so many retired he had come to the fork in the road: Return to working, even full time or research relocating to overseas locations such as Ecuador or Mexico.

Regarding the latter, the International Living folks are operating a very successful line of business. The chatter on social networks among my age peers is increasingly about permanently settling near a beach outside the US. Some of those are also looking into launching online businesses in their Expat Paradises.

Meanwhile, some over-65 could wind up to be in the front lines of what could be a new trend: Nomading.

They bite the bullet and relocate from, say, ABC to X or Y. But that first plan doesn't pan out. They can't take the heat. They miss the familiar lifestyle. They are unable to develop new friendships. The rentals surge in price. They want to be closer to the grandchildren.

So, they move yet again.

The typical example is the couple who left Pennsylvania for Louisiana. The wife still picks up personal-care gigs. To make ends meet more easily, they recently sold their motor home. Now they are in Ohio. Will you settle in here? That's what I asked them. Their response is becoming typical. It's: We don't know. 

In 2014, I pulled up roots in the New York Metro area and assumed I was going to make my new life in Tucson, Arizona. That got pricey and too careerist. In 2016, I drove four days to Northeastern OH. Here I earned enough from my businesses and invested enough to afford to try again at finding Paradise. That will be at the end of August. If that disappoints, the next stop will be outside the U.S. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Experienced - Employers Snatch in Welcome Mat

A digital economy has revered youth. After all, they are digital natives. 

With that has come the denigration of anyone over 45. AARP documents age bias can begin at that age.

Yet, experience can be the significant variable in success - whether it be the Super Bowl or bet the ranch litigation.

In a seminal The Wall Street Journal article, Sam Walker argues that spectacular failure frequently results from the lack of enough experience. 

Walker presents the recent example of Super Bowl 53.

Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay is 33. He is known for being innovative.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick is 66. To win the game, and this might have thrown McVay off his game, Belichick used old-line defensive measures. That blocked the Rams from getting more than three points.

In a sense, this phenomenon might be summed up as: Belichick had seen it all and could anticipate it all. He was not locked into a preoccupation with innovation per se. 

In lawsuits, with good reasons, clients want seasoned partners guiding the strategy. In fact, increasingly they are mandating that rookie associates not be part of the legal team. 

After Steve Jobs got more work experience he could return to Apple and put the then-floundering corporation on an upward trajectory. 

Andrew Bachman, who took a plea for mobile cramming, might have avoided considering going rogue had he more business experience. In the Babson dorm he started Tatto, which he and his startup team sold for $60 million. Had he, for example, a couple of years employed in the Fortune 5o, he might have got how much the federal government scrutinizes business. Therefore, he might have kept his startup legit.

Yet, age bias is growing. In addition, more and more employers and clients are unwilling to pay for experience. Their help-wanted ads and in-person conversations indicate they prefer to hire or contract with someone with only a few years experience in a niche such as legal marketing.

Of course, the experienced could become set in their ways, rebuff fresh strategic thinking and technologies, and not be open to just-in-time training. There are too many of them, trying to milk the past, especially their former brandnames, to keep producing revenue. They give all older professionals a bad name.

That is why, those hiring have to assess experience on a case-by-case basis. If they do, they will be able to increase the odds of success by partnering with professionals who keep updating their mindsets and skills.

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374 Need @gmail.com. 

2019 - Your Cover Letters

The cover letter is the way you introduce yourself to those who can hire you for jobs, contract assignments, or new business for your enterprise. You have just a few seconds before the recipient or robot will toss that cover letter into the don't-read-further box.

The first must-do not to be eliminated is to frontload the keywords robots are scanning for.

What are they?

You can find out which ones are necessary by retrieving and analyzing the help-wanted ads in your field. The words which keep appearing are the ones that you must include in your pitch.

For example, in a contract assignment in ecommerce the relevant keywords could be:

• Certification in Google AdWords
• Search Engine Optimization
• Digital Media Marketing
• Metrics, such as Google Analytics
• PhotoShop
• Video
• WordPress
• B2B and/or B2C
• Campaigns.

The next step is, from the get-go, to differentiate yourself from the 200 or 300 others who also apply. The pitch cannot in any way look or sound generic. It must showcase who you are as the unique professional and as the best hustler to get that specific job done.

All that should be positioned and packaged in the form of communicating briefly but in detail what you have achieved for other employers or clients, and, therefore, what you can achieve for the recipient of the pitch.

Essentially, the message you are sending is: This is what I can get done for you, better, faster, and more affordably than anyone else who is applying. 

5 Tips:

• Quantify. Specify, for instance, you increased page views 34% in four months. 
• Be brief. You can downsize the number of words you use by picking up the buzzwords in your field. You can do that by, again, studying the help-wanted ads.
• Show you understand their business and the challenges they are encountering. For example, note that the wellness category requires unique promotions because of the myriad new entries, including WW (the former Weight Watchers).
• Request permission to submit a mini marketing proposal. Why you need to ask permission is to indicate you understand the power game. "They" are in charge. You would be hired help. Why it's smart to do this is to signal you go the extra mile.
• Use term "we," simulating that you are already a member of the team. That's known as "assuming the sale."

Make the work resolution for 2019 to continue to experiment with the format, tone, and content of cover letters. T

The hiring marketplace keeps changing. So must how you pitch.

Out of the Box Communications = Unexpected Results

Complimentary Consultation janegenova374@gmail.com – I help, not sell.

October 30, 2018 - GE Changed Forever Concept of Retirement

Retirees in general, those who had retired from GE, and those who were planning to retire from GE but can't afford to got the rug pulled from under them - the financial one.

To rebuild its balance sheet, GE slashed its more than century old quarterly dividend. It had been 12-cents a share. It will be a mere penny. That, reports CNN, will save the company about $3.9 billion annually.

Although Wall Street had been expecting GE to re-think the dividend few anticipated this kind of downsizing. 

This is yet another brutal example of the surprises which can undo even the most conservative retirement planning. To apply that crude saying: No retiree can ever assume he or she is sitting pretty in terms of funding the next 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years.

Already, found the Federal Reserve Board, about one third of retirees have already returned to the workforce.  With inflation back, there will probably be more.

But even before inflation returned, in what might be thought of as Retirement Paradise - southwestern Arizona - those who had been living the easy life scrambled to figure out how to get back in the labor market. I coached some of them in 2014, including creating the new kinds of resumes and cover letters. Both those had to shift from a laundry list of credentials to: Here is what I can do for you.

Also, many of them had that raw moment of clarity that they had to erase their dream of international travel and perhaps buying a second home in Mexico or Belize. 

The survival measure GE took could represent just the beginning of jolts for those in the retirement or pre-retirement box. Meanwhile, other cruel developments had bit them in their golden age dreams.

For example, with GE relocating from Fairfield, Connecticut to Boston, employees and other aging professionals are discovering that they cannot sell their houses in CT. They are stuck with their property at a time when the population movement is out of high-tax CT. 

The old-line concept of retirement - never doing paid work again - may have died today with GE's announcement of the extreme dividend cut.

From the get-go, aging professionals have to wrap their heads around to embrace the earning power they have now, not what they used to have. And, must number-two is: No one wants to hear them grousing about it. The new ethos is to be realistic about the kind of work that can be gotten. 

The marketing communications experts who used to bill at $50 an hour may have to be grateful to pick up $19 hourly doing telecommuting assignments. No one might hire them if they show up in person. Major metro areas have become corridors of doors shut against the aging.

Yes, age bias is real. It happens to even big Brandnames in professional life. 

Here is my recent book on financial survival measures for those who start bouncing up against that kind of discrimination  Download Outwitting ageism.

Takeaway: The aging have to depend on themselves and their own wits to make ends meet. Not a supposed great corporation. Not a financial planner. Not a track record from the past. Not that gold-plated network. The latter will ditch them as soon as they displays signs of reduced marketability.

Career coaching and preparation of job search and small business promotional materials. Complimentary consultation. Sliding scale fees. You owe yourself the best shot at finding, holding, and moving on to better work. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Your Cover Letter - Your Me-To-You Communication with Employers, Temp Agencies, Customers/Clients

Employers, temp agencies, and prospective customers/clients pick up on "it" immediately.

That "it" is the stink of a generic pitch - or cover letter.

To them, a canned outreach represents disrespect. It is also a sign of a lack of authentic enthusiasm for the opportunity.

Sure, those searching for work have a pattern in mind for applying. Usually, that's in Word documents or the DropBox as a standard cover letter.

However, it should only be a guide. Also, it should contain the selling approaches which have proved effective. Those will change over time.

So, from the get-go in reading a help wanted or hearing about a job opening hunker down and create a fresh cover letter. It will contain material from other pitches. Essentially, though, it will deliver a me-to-you communication that will reach into the recipient's mind, heart, and pocketbook.

Yes, me-to-you pitches during the search for work do cast spells. The power is that of voodoo. The applicant made an investment of thought, energy, and time. That carries an aura.

Attention is the currency of the 21^st century. Jane Genova helps you get it for products, services, points of view, causes, branding, careers after-50, and college admission.

In addition, this blog welcomes sponsored content.

Free consultation janegenova374@gmail.com

 

Your Cover Letters - Pitch What You Can Accomplish for Employers/Clients, Not Your Credentials in Isolation

Cover letters are the most important sales pitch those searching for jobs, contract assignments, and clients will ever make.

Your living depends on their success.

That means that, just as high-producing professional salespeople do, you focus on what you can accomplish for the recipient. You spend very little time focusing on yourself as a person.

The context is not social. It's all about benefit to the recipient.

In addition, it's not about credentials, at least not in isolation. Employers value them less. That's one reason applications to the M.B.A. programs, even at elite institutions such as Harvard and Stanford, are in decline. 

If you discuss credentials it should be in relation to how they help you generate results. For instance, after you received that certification in Google AdWords or Conversational Spanish, mobile traffic for the six accounts you manage increased an average of 23%.

The focus on what you can accomplish for the employer or prospective client essentially has two parts.

The first is what you have accomplished for others who are similar to them. Make that specific.

No, you don't say, "I have an excellent track record in increasing responses to Calls to Action."

Instead. you say, "For a 45-agent real estate firm I boosted responses to Calls to Action 35% in two months and for a 120-lawyer personal injury firm I increased Calls to Action 43% in four months."

Then, you briefly explain strategies and tactics in marketing communications you can introduce for them immediately and with low cost. However, you don't want to suggest that the organization isn't doing things right. You also don't want to sound unduly aggressive.

The way to reduce risk is to position and package your recommendations this way, "The most effective tactics, I have found, include tightening up the landing page, continually using A/B testing in e-mails, and graphically showing possible results through calculators."

Next, you ask for the opportunity to learn more about the details of their business by meeting with them. Provide your contact information. 

When applying for a broad range of work possibilities, of course, you will develop a broad range of different cover letters.

As with formal sales calls, if your specific approaches aren't generating interviews, then reverse engineer the entire process.

Examine:

• Kinds of work you're applying for. You may not have the experience needed or too much experience. Regarding the latter, more employers are imposing experience caps.
• Whom you're directly contacting. If sending unsolicited letters, find out from your network or human resources who does the hiring. 
• Opening two sentences - Cite specifically why you are excited about this particular opportunity. State you are the best professional to achieve the results needed.
• Examples provided for accomplishments. Are they recent? If not, because you have been unemployed, get new ones by doing unpaid assignments. Few will turn down free.
• Length of pitch? Is it too long or too short? There are no absolutes here. The help-wanted ad will guide you. A long detailed one usually means the expectation of a long detailed cover letter. Some ads state for you to stick with four sentences. 
• Tone? In selling, you mirror everything about whom you're pitching to. If it's a large brandname law firm, the tone will be formal. If it's a startup with two employees, the tone will be casual and to the point.
• Have you proofread? If you make changes in the cover you have to proofread the entire letter all over again. 
• Are you customizing for every pitch? Recipients hate generic letters.

Assistance with cover letters, resumes, interview personas, and approaches to a job search available. Sliding scale fees. For complimentary consultation, please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

Stop Getting Labeled "Overqualified" - Cover Letters Which Bypass Ageism

The cover letter is how job hunters introduce themselves to potential employers.

Essentially, that means it's a sales pitch.

And, if the sales pitch is done effectively, the cover letter can prevent seasoned professionals from getting knocked out of the box as "overqualified."

That's because they leverage every word in the cover letter to promote what they can accomplish for that employer - better, faster, and less expensive that the 200 or 300 others applying for that job.

That's what matters to employers. If they have evidence you will produce what they need they are likely to overlook age per se. 

Nonono, never is a cover letter a nicely formatted laundry list of credentials. That's more resume territory. And, in this hyper competitive market for good jobs, even the resume focuses on accomplishments. For instance, the Summary section explicitly and briefly itemizes accomplishments, with one line stating what the job applicant can also accomplish for this specific employer.

The cover letter for older professionals, however, starts up in the usual manner.

There is an enthusiastic acknowledgement what an opportunity it would be to, for example, be part of the cloud team at IBM.

If the employer's identity is not provided, then talk generically about the contribution cloud is bringing to business and how you want to part of that disruption.

Yes, demonstrate in that first paragraph that you have done some research. That shows you are really interested, a natural hustler, and will pull out all stops performing on the actual job.

Then, state explicitly you are the best professional to generate the outcomes that employer needs.

Base that on what you have achieved for recent employers. As an older professional, you have to keep your work history short. A long one waves a red flag in front of employers that you expect high compensation for all that experience.

Incidentally, more employers are indicating experience caps in the help-wanted. That could be, for instance, two years.  That's all they are willing to pay for. 

The wrong tactic is to simply describe skills. Instead you have to make clear how those skills helped produce positive outcomes in the past. Then, you will indicate you can do the same or even better for this employer. 

After you hit hard with accomplishments then you can describe other edges you have. For instance, you bring additional value to this tech employer because of your background in marketing.

Note, for instance, that you had been on the board of directors of the American Marketing Association, served on a multidisciplinary team which focused on marketing initiatives at your previous or current employer, and/or design marketing strategies as a consultant.

A line or two on community outreach? Sure, employers might want to see signs of good character.

Then, request an interview. Provide easy ways to be contacted. 

Keep fine-tuning your cover letter.

Everything changes, ranging from the dynamics of the job market in your niche to your accomplishments.

Even after being hired, keep bringing up to date your cover letter. Essentially jobs have become project assignments. Soon enough you could be searching for the next project.

Communications Strategy/Services and Career Coaching. Special areas of expertise include professionals over-50 and students applying to degree programs in higher education.

 

Complimentary initial consultation. Sliding scale fees. Contact Jane Genova for an appointment janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

“Over-50: Outsmarting Your Comfort Zone” http://over-50.typepad.com/over-50/2018/05/outsmarting-your-comfort-zone-free-book.html

 “Over-50: The Four Monsters in the Mind” http://over-50.typepad.com/over-50/2018/04/ageism-bites-.html

 

When Local News Had the Real Power

Like a dead fish, the newsroom of the New York Daily News was gutted. 

Now it's real: Local news is on the way to dead.

However, those of us from Hudson County, New Jersey hold out hope that our own little bit of a town crier - The Jersey Journal - can continue on and on. 

What The Wall Street Journal is to the global business community, The Jersey Journal had been to the densely populated Hudson County region. That area had been iconic for housing the Frank Hague political machine.

Whatever was needed by the residents usually went through the machine. Your cousin from Poland needed a job? See the parish priest who knew someone who knew someone in City Hall, in downtown Jersey City, NJ. 

That, of course, rarely made it into The Jersey Journal. It wasn't really news. It was mundane reality. What had been news was the unlucky black sheep of a family who got nabbed in a breaking and entering or a DUI.

Those tenements glued to one another and the duplexes in which the mother and the daughter's family bunked buzzed with gossip.

The biggest fear of my tribe was that I would do something outrageous which would get into The Jersey Journal.

I and a few classmates at Snyder High School were considering protesting that females were not allowed to sit at the bar in taverns in Hudson County. They were segregated to the tables part.

That reality and our agitation about it predated the second wave of women's liberation by several years. Our families' image was saved when we went off to college without changing the way the world worked in Hudson County. 

The power of The Jersey Journal was palpable.

Likely that's how I got the notion I could become a writer. And after being sidelined by the over-education which cast a spell on our generation, I did start to write.

That was 400+ miles away in an unheated basement in coal town Greensburg, Pennsylvania. I was over the moon happy. I still am happy, although writing currently is the smallest profit center in my enterprises. My passion is being on the front lines combatting ageism.

An irony is that my brother-in-law, whom I never met, had been a publisher at The Jersey Journal. That was Scott Ring.

But back then and right up to these disruptive times in life and business his wife - my sister Anne Murga-Ring - were and are estranged.

I love the drama of all that. I could put together a one-act play "Twisted Sisters."

And, that sense of theatre is vintage Jersey City. It had been embedded in the ethos of its media. That I haven't shaken and hope I never will.

I emote. I am. 

Coaching, auditing, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on ageism.  

 

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The displaced over-50 get back to work. Mature professionals who are working advance their careers. Contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

 

“Over-50: Outsmarting Your Comfort Zone” http://over-50.typepad.com/over-50/2018/05/outsmarting-your-comfort-zone-free-book.html

 “Over-50: The Four Monsters in the Mind” http://over-50.typepad.com/over-50/2018/04/ageism-bites-.html

 

 

Financial Suicide: Operating W/O Side Hustles

The day job can go in a poof.

Whole industries are vanishing.

And you can be several years away from even filing early for Social Security. 

Obviously, it's financial recklessness to operate without side hustles. Yes, plural. In addition to my coaching over-50 service I have two other side hustles.

However, those side hustles have to be managed carefully so you don't put your day job at risk.

Here is the article I published today on O'Dwyer about positioning and packaging yourself as a "Mutt Brand."

Simplification - What Those Compound and Complex Sentences Could Be Saying About You

"Yes, compound and complex sentences are treasured by many constituencies in China."

That's how I started out my manifesto to the head of a enterprise editing written material by those in China for whom English is a second language.

"And when the audiences for the material are those kinds of audiences in China, then, certainly, we primarily use compound and complex sentence structures. But when the 'target markets' are in America, standard should be short simple sentences.

"Along with that, of course, should be sentence variation. That's the element of style. So, here and there, yes, we would include compound and complex sentences.

"Even the newspaper of record - The New York Times - has stylistically shifted to fewer convoluted sentences."

The specific target market I was referring to was an elite university in the U.S. The business owner in China and I were going back and forth editing the draft of a Chinese student's personal statement on an application for that institution of higher learning. 

My point was that the admissions committee, seeing all those run-on sentences, would assume the applicant in China would have difficulty with both classroom and everyday communications in the U.S. That could knock him out of the box in being admitted. 

For years I had ghostwritten articles for experts in teaching English as a Second Language. The topic of several of them was this: Too many students from foreign nations attending American schools failed academically and were isolated socially because they were illiterate in how English is actually used in daily life. That was even though they had passed examinations given to test English language proficiency. 

I won most of the argument. Simplification it would be. 

Meanwhile, I wonder what other hopeful strivers around the world are not achieving their goals because of editing based on anachronistic stylistics. In addition to school admissions offices turning them down, there could be publishers of English-language journals and recruiters for jobs who are tossing their written material. 

However, this is a problem not only for those who are not native speakers of English. In my career coaching of the over-50, I have also found that outmoded styles in written material and interviews can also knock them out of the box. Essentially, they come across as "out of touch." The "tells" include those same kinds of long-winded sentences. The hiring folk roll their eyes.

There used to be the saying: Style is the man. In 2018, style is a competitive weapon. 

Coaching, auditing, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on ageism.  

 

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The displaced over-50 get back to work. Mature professionals who are working advance their careers. Contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.