We found this great article on Georgia Trend We have excerpted here. To read further, which is well worth doing, just hit the hyperlink.
New Year, New Career
The traditional road toward a gold watch and a retirement dinner is increasingly less traveled by an
Krista Reese
If your New Year’s resolution involves earning more money, more recognition or greater satisfaction from professional accomplishments, that may mean you’re contemplating changing jobs – or even careers.
You’re not alone: For most of us, the old model of a lifelong career with a single employer and a gold watch and solid pension at the end of it, is as outdated as a slide rule. The most frequently cited statistics usually estimate five to seven job changes over a lifetime, and a career shift three to five times.
If you’re business-savvy, well-educated and old enough to feel comfortably established, you’re probably successful enough to believe that most of your previous New Years’ career resolutions have paid off quite well. Along with financial happiness, you probably feel satisfied you’ve done your job well. Surprisingly, according to a study by executive search firm Korn/Ferry, you’re just as likely – if not more so – to be thinking of switching professional gears.
In the survey, 67 percent of 1,700 global executives describe themselves as successful, and nearly the same number would “definitely” recommend their field to someone just starting out. And yet: When asked if they anticipated a major career change before retirement, fully three in five consider it “highly likely,” with an additional 26 percent predicting it “likely.”
Craig Dunlevie, managing director of the firm’s Atlanta office, offers a couple of explanations: “People are more opportunistic in the way they think of marketing themselves now,” he says. On the lookout to advance into positions that dovetail with their experience, many professionals keep a constant weather eye on the business climate, assessing the value of their resumes like a stock chart.
Still, he says, established professionals are more likely to be conservative than the workforce as a whole, changing jobs only two or three times, and careers not more than once: “Despite the fact that they’re shopping more, they’re probably a little more risk averse. Some may have gotten burned by leaving established careers to jump into some short-term opportunities, like dot-coms.” Many focus on serving on boards, heading nonprofits or hanging up a shingle to work for themselves.
Personal finances motivate another group of mid- to late-career job-seekers, Dunlevie says: “A number of baby boomers are not retiring according to their original game plans. They may have thought they’d quit working by 58 to 60. But either their nest egg isn’t built, or the stock market wiped it out in 2000-01. Now they’re in the economic position of pursuing something else. It’s the haves and have-nots to some extent, but there’s also a fear of being idle, along with the need for more security – and health care benefits.”
Corra well knows while the ever present search if for the young, things have changed and many companies realize there is nothing like experience. The old saw that Boomers like the drive and energy has long been put to rest. Between nutritional changes and exercise regimens, people tend to stay younger and more vital a lot longer.
HR Managers can take advantage of this deep pool of executive and professional talent. Especially, as skilled labor comes more in demand in the future years it will be favorable and even trendy to put our Boomers back into the work force.
Nevertheless, Boomers like every other group have had their share of troubles and woes, credit problems and substance abuse not being the least of them. Corra suggests you run background checks on Boomer candidates, even if they have a long record of employment. As with any other group, some are far more reliable than others.
Reduce your risks of turnover and even costly litigation by not only running a criminal check, but a credit check, and maybe even civil background reports as well. You may not only be reviewing poor financial management but in civil records you may find sexual harassment cases and other judgments that render your candidate less than desirable.
So no matter how old or how talented, follow Corra’s advice and check them out before you hire.
