Fortunately, many fewer Boomers will retire soon because they haven’t saved enough money.  That will save Boomer skills and perspective for many organizations.  However, so many who can retire do — only to find that they are bored past bearing by a lack of stimulation they can’t provide themselves.  Boomers have lived to work.  It’s been both necessity and entertainment since their twenties.  Here’s a novel idea:  Instead of discriminating against people over 70, how about actively recruiting them and making the workplace elder-friendly to boot?

What would happen if we dusted off that old feminist concept of the job share?  Why couldn’t two  70-year-olds share a job as effectively as two thirtysomethings?  They could, if a fortysomething boss could rethink his/her agenda and explain what the job really required.  Oh, you say, “These people aren’t technically competent.”  What about the local community college?  Does it discriminate against older workers?  Here’s another idea:  What about providing technical training to any person who agrees to work a job or a job share for one year?  You won’t get the twentysomethings to agree but older workers will.

You can’t see the coming worker shortage because the Great Recession has masked it.  You can’t tell who might be a terrorist in the security line at O’Hare either.  Does that mean there aren’t any?  Same logic.  The real danger in retirement is that the people who shouldn’t be allowed to retire go first.  They lived prudent lives.  That leaves the desperate who will do anything to stay on the payroll.  Are they really the role models and mentors we want for the next few generations?  The latter aren’t sold on organized America anyway.

Retirement takes away the very people needed to patiently nurture the next generation of workers.  Wouldn’t it make sense for companies to recruit at retirement communities?  After three trips to China, not to mention, Tibet, some of those residents would be interested in greater stimulation.

In the iconic musical, A Chorus Line,  one of the songs is called “Dance Ten, Looks Three.”  The singer tells the tale of her life’s transformation through surgery on her nose, bottom, and breasts.  You don’t have to listen to the song twice to understand that what was transformed was her self-confidence.  Fifty- and sixtysomethings are wondering if plastic surgery could lengthen and/or transform their careers.  “If I looked 35 would I be treated as if I were 35?”  Well, no, because your peers would recognize you’d been surgically  reworked.  However, thinking about plastic surgery as a solution focuses attention on how worried Boomers are about  rampant, sincere, all-encompassing age discrimination.  Our issue is, “What is the real question?”  Clients tell us it’s raging helplessness in selling themselves to younger bosses.

That’s important but it’s not a medical issue, it’s a confidence issue.  Consider the following:

1.  If a lifestyle or complete face lift would make you feel more competitive, consider it.  You may even consider medical tourism.  Ask a specialist here.  We’re finding more people getting work done in Brazil and India by physicians recommended by American physicians who trained with them in US hospitals.  Check it out.

2.  People who are most critical of older people tend to be ten or 20 years younger than the people they dread becoming.  They are the ones most likely to say they don’t want to work with people older than themselves.  Those views are unattractive to thirty- and fortysomethings hoping to be mentored by the oldies.

3.  Is the problem age or skills?  Anyone considering surgery might do a skills check up first.  How are you with the social media?  If you’re lagging behind no amount of surgery will close the gap.

4.  Do you look healthy?  A perfect body isn’t an asset if it’s clear you’re not vigorous.  We could tell horror stories of people who got lots of surgery only to feel worse, not better, about themselves.

5.  Can you afford the cost and time off?  When people actually weigh the options many decide there must be less drastic measures.  There are.  Are there courses you could take that would change your self-confidence?  Try the community college for all updates.  Get fashion advice from a stylist.  Network this one.  You have friends who know.  Hint:  a wedding consultant has lots of resources of who does what with exceptional skill.  (Men:  the  wedding consultant knows people who make men look great.)

6.  Have you had one turn down or many?  One of anything isn’t definitive unless it’s the Hope diamond.  If you have a series of terrible interviews during which you feel age discrimination was a factor, consult an objective counselor.  You may find a pattern which is not age related.  For example, you keep referring to what you did ten or twenty years ago instead of last week.  Consider a video of you answering questions.

The tail on this tail:  Before you decide on surgery make sure it will solve the real problem.  I’d say that right now it’s 50 -50 among my clients.  More men than women seemed enhanced in all ways by surgery.

Note:  I’m republishing this piece because 23 people since January 1 have asked about cosmetic surgery.

Welcome to the great demographic divide.  Whatever myth the Boomer tells herself she accurately assessed the mood of her direct reports.  They see the job and the company as means to an end.  It doesn’t matter what happened ten or even five years ago.  Nothing matters that happened since the Great Recession began.  You know this isn’t true.  There are lessons in history if those lessons are grounded in the here and practical.  If not, they are myths and fairy tales old people like.

The Boomers, with their much-lauded people skills aren’t the communicators they believe.  For instance,  techno twits are not role models anyone under 30 admires.   Why be guided by someone who’s still longing for Word Perfect?  Also, it’s not productive to demand admiration for accomplishments younger people don’t admire such as bamboozling a boss.  You smoothed over a problem with your boss so that he hardly remembered he was mad at you.  You didn’t solve the problem as the twentysomethings expected/wanted you to do.

Here’s the point:  You can’t teach, lead or mentor in ways your audience doesn’t want to learn or follow.  Is this too obvious?  I see self-help books not to mention posts and newsletters which all describe how the author (a Boomer) would behave now if just starting out.  This is the equivalent of discussing manufacturing today and not mentioning China and India or even Mexico.  I am as susceptible to believing I have something to teach as any Boomer but that needs to be translated into the kinds of experiences these people have had.  Yes, in the olden days we had school loans — but $150,000 for undergraduate?  Not really.  In fact, so much of the advice people want to share is worthless.  Someone who didn’t have Facebook has a different expectation of privacy than someone who’s posted his/her own raunchy pictures.

So is the demographic divide unbridgable?  No.  But it depends on starting from the premise that the facts transcend ages, but interpretation of the facts is age defined.  I like to start discussions with people half my age by asking:  “What does this mean?” or “How did you read this situation.”  Try it.

1.  Carve out a niche and become a content expert.  Most experts are self-proclaimed.  It’s a question of picking a problem in your chosen field, researching it and writing about it.  In demographics it’s all about the Boomers — what they will and won’t do.  In museum work it’s about donors and audiences.  In magazines it’s about attracting and retaining younger readers.  Do you have something provocative and fresh to say?

2.  Look at the people now in the job you want.  Get their bios.  How did they get from point A to point B.  NEVER listen to people telling you what an organization wants.  Always look at the people they’ve hired.  In the old days organizations — in order to attract techies — would tell people that an IT had a shot at the top.  If it wasn’t an IT organization that was a lie.  How to find out for sure?  Get the bios of the top five officers.  Would you be surprised to learn they came up through sales and marketing?  Could this be why so many techies start their own companies?

3.  Never stop campaigning to get into the organization you want.  Volunteer there if it’s a not-for-profit.  If it’s a magazine, what trade organizations do they belong to.  Become a member.  Look for feeder organizations.  What has been the career path for the last five editors?

4.  You have to be in the path of the moving train.  Magazines and entertainment hang out in New York.  The movies are in Los Angeles.  People who refuse to move to the source city are, by definition, not serious.  If you want to work for a museum you may end up in an obscure university town — for a year.  Or, you may end up working for a museum you wouldn’t visit — for a year.

The saddest people I talk to are the ones who never followed a dream, regardless of age.  Yes, it would be difficult to be a television production intern at 45 but you could make a strong case for how you other experiences have  equipped you to make a contribution now.  The good news:  Even the stuffiest organizations aren’t looking for employees who’ll stay forever so age is less of a factor.  If you’re waiting to write your memoirs until you’ve “lived” it will never happen.  Write, right now.

1. What interest of yours is at stake?  Please don’t talk about justice for all.  There is no justice in corporate America — and even less in the not-for-profit sector.   What looks like mistreatment may be loudness or tactlessness.  Getting involved in other peoples’ political problems is bad because both may turn on you having found a common enemy.  

2.  Bullies are everywhere.  If you’re not being bullied,  coach the victim privately but don’t get publicly involved.  For example, the victim is being ostracized.  Ask him for coffee or lunch.  It will send a wordless message to the bullies.  Nothing bothers bullies more than finding out someone doesn’t get it — or doesn’t care!

3.  You can support a boss in pain with encouragement.  Never criticize her boss.  By all the rules of hierarchy she’d have to defend her!  The easiest support is a sincere compliment.  It’s also the toughest to punish.  Say,  ”Thanks for your help on the project,” or “I really appreciated your feedback.  I think I incorporated most of it,” or “I’ve certainly learned a lot from you in the last six months.”  If none is true keep quiet.

4.  Don’t appear to know more than you do.  Don’t let on what you do know.  If you heard your boss berated by her boss tell no one, especially don’t tell your boss.  As we have said often, “Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”  Observation without oral confirmation that what you saw was true is a bad thing.  Maybe what seemed brutal to you felt like truth to them.

5.  Weakness, like passive aggressive behavior, can be a political tool.  Your boss only seems to be beaten.  She’s having an affair with her boss’s boss that you don’t know about!  Their discussion is symbolic rather than real.  Even the grapevine may not have picked up on this yet.

6.  Don’t ask the grapevine about issues.  Listen.  If people think you are interested they can distort, exagerate, or lie.  The most factual information comes from multiple, not overlapping sources.  If the mail room and the legal department report the same rumor you can believe it.  If it’s all in your department someone has an agenda.

Finally, even if you find out your worst fears are true, don’t come out guns blazing.  A small incident can go global.  Stand away from any discussions on the social media.

Not so fast my friends.  It’s not an unreasonable question to ask a fortysomething in an age of runaway technology.  (I know people who are still using WordPerfect.)  I suspect what the interviewer was testing was ego strength.  Fact:  People who relentlessly look for new information or experiences are better performers. 

 The question you never want to be asked is, “Do you have 20 years’ experience or one year’s experience repeated 19 times?”  That is a common question for long-term occupants of any job.   I’ve been  researching, writing about, and counseling on career planning since 1975.  Wouldn’t you want to know how what I did now was different from 1975?  More had changed than has  stayed the same.

Part of interview prep should be to divide your experience by three to five-year periods.  You, and only you, can explain how the job changed.  No reference check can reveal it.  How did you begin doing things differently while still getting the result?  If it truly was the same job done the same way for 20 years that is scary.  Consider the following signs you’ve been updating:

1.  Courses taken anywhere from a community college, in-house, association sponsored, or any credible organization.

2.  On-line research which you can summarize in a sentence or two.  How did what you learned change the way you approached your job?

3.  Experimentation that changed how you did your job.  Example:  “I saw that we were spending too much time on individual inquiries.  I developed a series of templates and my boss liked them.  Now everyone in the department uses them.”  Nailed!

Interviewers need some proof that you are working to get better at your job.  You get bonus points when you point out that you initiated these upgrades.  Always ask yourself who you would hire:  the person who’s fully engaged or the person who’s going through the motions, however competently?

If you were to ask employers what they hated most — aside from aggressive incompetence — they’d say, “passivity.”  They want someone who at least hints that he or she would put more than the minimum into doing the job.

A.  You reformers are all alike.  In a bad job market you arrive with a change agenda for people who want the same old, same old and you expect to be loved.  What are you thinking?  You are right to be concerned about their opinions even if your boss supports you.  You’ve got to please your direct reports because, properly motivated, they can make your life hell and even sandbag your performance.  They will do this by raising questions about your competence in the grapevine.   They can yes you to death and not change a thing.  These people have staying power or why would they hire you?

 Stop talking about change.  It scares them senseless and puts them in a fighting mode.  Instead, talk about fine tuning.  Ask how they’d solve the problems  your boss wants solved.  It’s o.k. to say that you have no idea how things work here (you don’t and won’t for a few more months) and would appreciate suggestions.  In other words, co-opt them into the process. 

Fire your poorest performer.  You’ll have to warn orally, write warnings, talk to HR,  but it’s the only way to convince the group you mean business.  If they think you’re not going to take any serious action they’ll never change a thing.  Their singular strength is staying power.   Use a carrot and stick approach because it works.  Do not look for a ring leader or the person who complains the loudest.  At least the latter is engaged.   Stay close to your boss.  The grapevine will go wild for a few weeks but it will move on once you’re in control.  Even more than change people fear a leader who can’t lead.

Confide in nobody.  The worst scenario is that you boss hears from his sources that you’re complaining about the help.  You’re supposed to clean things up.  If you complain it means you have doubts in your skills which is bad. 

You can face this problem at any stage in your career.  Don’t you know there is a special skill set for reformers, turnaround artists and change agents?  If that’s your role, you’ll need the ability to coax and reform at the same time.  As long as you understand you’re not going to be popular you can do this.

Sixty may be the new 40 if your plastic surgeon is gifted.  It’s true that the average client for in vitro fertilization is 45.  But what nobody seems to have addressed so far it the effect of these realities on the workplace.  For example,  A Boomer (born 1946-1959) who works to age 70 slows the upward progression of twenty- and thirtysomethings but what if he or she works to age 80?  If you started with the company at 25 on the theory you’d be senior management by 45 you are in for a shock.  The 65-year-olds who needed to leave to make room for you are going strong — and nowhere!

Most observers of popular culture would weigh in at this point with the fact that old age isn’t associated with wisdom and accomplishment but with Altzheimers, physical pains, and being surrounded by people more boring  than you are.  A generation ago living to 80 was an achievement.  Today, it’s a risk

That means all those HR types and manpower planners need to alter their assumptions about how  the next generation of workers — a smaller cohort already –  will get into the parking lot, much less find jobs.  It’s dreadful but true that companies expect their older higher-paid workers to retire or die.  Has anyone considered what happens when they won’t?  To fire all the marginally competent Boomers right now would cripple many businesses.  How about in ten years?

I think you’ll see a new kind of severance as companies pay people to leave.  “We’ll give you two years’ severance if you retire at the end of the month.”  What happens when the Boomers say, “No,” because they have finally run the numbers and know they can’t quit working?   I have had several clients in the past year seek transfers to their companies’   southern subsidiaries because of the difference in cost of living.  However, how many people can do that?

The number of people needed to kiss babies at Wal-Mart is limited and the people doing it aren’t Boomers and aren’t dying.  Besides, Boomers would worry about germs.  Twenty- and thirtysomethings are notoriously disdainful of the Fortune 500.  Are there reasons other than stock options to work for start-ups such as not having to bother with Boomers and fortysomethings in the mix? 

Even if Boomers linger well past normal retirement age companies face a massive selling job to younger workers.  How can you put a 25-year-old on ice for 20 years?  The implications for the economy are tremendous.  Can you call iit a pipeline if nobody “flows” through?  Will Boomers allow age discrimination as long as they are the largest voting block?

You aren’t  surprised because during the last year you’ve seen the tiny details accrue that mean the branch is moribund. Not renewing the office lease would be one.  You’ve done the following:  renewed your membership in your professional association although you haven’t attended any meetings; signed up for the national meeting two months from now, and started sorting your contacts.  What else should you be doing?

Don’t overlook establishing/refining contact with co-workers.  They will all land somewhere unless the stress of transition kills them.  Get personal emails.  Decide who you will build a closer relationship with now — preferably the most employable.

Duck the post-mortem on what the company did  wrong.  Here’s where people hurt potential references.  If the rumor goes around that you thought your boss could have done more, your reference will be affected.  If you point out that co-workers made serious mistakes that co-worker could trash you if asked about your performance.  Don’t read emails on your phone during the next debriefing.  Indifference is more painful than criticism.  You have to maintain an attitude of intense interest and commitment until you’ve made the final trip to the parking lot.

Above all,  don’t be quoted in the grapevine as “glad to be out of this loser.” The people who made the decision to close the operation are hyper-sensitive.  They think they are suffering not the blues but the mean reds.  (Read “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” for a complete explanation.)   A client gave his honest opinion on rampant mismanagement and was fired three weeks early — no severance.  Yes, it happens.  Don’t let down your guard.

Make sure you produce high-quality work to the last day. Leave a transition report on work in progress.   Management at all levels will notice.  As dear Yogi said, “It’s not over until it’s over.”  If this is too obvious why  do I see forty- and fiftysomethings making gratuitous comments out of  pure spite?  (Some are really funny.)  Even worse, the twenty- and thirtysomethings who express their unflattering views  on LinkedIn.  Don’t publish your own invitation to dismissal. 

Why does anyone need to be reminded to behave well and keep quiet?  Too often, older workers can’t resist the temptation to score off a boss or co-workers or assign blame.  Let’s face it:  criticizing is fun when you believe there are no consequences which unfortunately, means only critiquing the performance of those doing the dirt nap.  Save the irony and humor for someone who doesn’t know any of the players.

When we analyze someone’s handicaps, we always see the same pattern.  A handicap is in the eye of the beholder.  The trick in job hunting is to match your flaws with someone who’s overcome them or who sees them as manageable, or even assets.  That means much more research into people rather than just organizations.  It means tracking down former employees who can give you insight into a boss’s prejudices, weaknesses, and challenges.  How many people do this?  Only the most desperate and only after many, many rejections.  Doesn’t it make sense to match your profile to a boss’s?  Here’s how.

You know the name of the boss you’d like to work for.  Did you Google him or her?  Did you look at the website of the organization to get a feel for who they’ve hired and promoted in the past?  Is this too elementary?  Then when asked where a prospective boss went to school, why could only one in 100 applicants answer?  Could there be a more basic, or easily attainable piece of information?  You might know alumni willing to make  introductions — people you already know, a.k.a. networking.

If you had a complete biography of the prospective boss before the interview you could tailor your summary of your  qualifications to complement his or hers.  Is there anyone who wouldn’t like to hire someone with complimentary values?  A few folks consider this chicanery because you’re matching instead of exposing the “real” you — whoever that might be.   Remember, you are not selling you, but a set of skills and experience.  Wouldn’t it be lovely not to have to trek through why what you’ve always done isn’t what you want to do next because the person across the desk does what you want to do now?  That meeting would be the product of research, not dumb luck.

Nothing pays you back as much as research on a prospective boss before an interview.  It can even keep you from going to the interview at all — because you realize that the prospect is unlikely to value what you do well.  Here’s the formula:  at least one to two hours researching anyone before an interview — including telephone interviews!  It’s all about better targeting and better presentation of what you’re selling.