Grey Matters

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Imagine this: your 20-year-old niece is starting an internship as part of her sandwich degree course - just as your 51-year-old sister starts her own internship at a local law firm. Absurd? Or the future of recruitment, where midlifers' experience can be employed while meeting the growing demand for flexible, skilled talent.
View any social media platform these days and you'll find a wealth of commentary on the perils of job-seeking in midlife. From senior executives being "let go" in favour of more junior (read: cheaper) staff to their roles being outsourced to low-cost countries, many midlifers are finding that the "older and wiser" label is not necessarily garnering the opportunities that it may have done in the past.
Even the World Health Organization has admitted ageism is a global challenge with its report declaring that every second person in the world is believed to hold ageist attitudes. Isn't it ironic that experience can be considered irrelevant when you have so much of it later in life and yet its absence is a barrier to the newly educated struggling to get started?
Just because your hair may begin to turn grey as the pigment melanin fades, it doesn't follow that the rest of you is disintegrating. Tell that to the respondents for my quick LinkedIn poll where 46% of midlifers described their job search journey as "hard work; so far unrewarding" with a further 31% saying "the worst my career has seen". It begs the question whether midlife job-seeking is less about serendipity or planning and more a matter of perspective.
Relying on your grey matter
Although many aspects of the brain remain a mystery, we're reliably informed that we can all benefit from neuroplasticity - an ability to rewire our brains to reorganise our thoughts and behaviours.
Using smartphones, computers and the internet can also make a difference to our cognitive abilities. A meta-analysis of nearly 60 studies involving 410,000 people in people aged over 50 has found that those who spend more time using smartphones, computers and the internet are less likely to have cognitive impairment—and more likely to have slower cognitive decline—than people who spend less time using these technologies.
It's a reminder of the importance of mindset in the process of being ready and resilient for work in midlife. As author of two employability courses known as 2B Ready, I see first-hand how midlifers are struggling with confidence and grit which is hindering their ability to ride the waves of difficulties and obstacles that can hamper job-seeking efforts. Redundancy and rejection are hard task masters. Yet, storytelling and narrative practice techniques can help to reinvent any career history.
Midlifers have long ago embraced reliability, stickability and empathy - and in a world of artificial intelligence (AI) we all need to exploit these human capabilities. By bringing their unique qualities of ideation, innovation and intuition to the workplace, midlifers can excel and businesses can gain. A report from CapGemini found that 74% of executives believe emotional intelligence is set to be a "must have" skill in the next five years with returns on their investment in building emotional intelligence in their workforces potentially offering incremental gains of US$6.8 million.
What if midlife candidates could take advantage of "silver internships" to share these hard-won qualities and improve their own health? Employers could offer temporary periods of employment for three-, six- or 12-months, to bring much-needed skills and experience at a suitable cost. Whether undertaking a one-off project or serving a broad number of departments, experienced midlifers can make an effective contribution - without a hint of age bias - that rewards companies while keeping everyone's options open.
Realising the rewards of silver interns
While the idea of silver internships may not be a reality, there are rich rewards, to individuals, to business and to the economy from embracing midlife skills:
Benefits to individuals: Midlife candidates have so much valuable experience to bring to other generations. In research undertaken by the hotel and resort chain Hilton, 60% of over 50s said they can learn from working with those younger than themselves. And it works both ways: more than three quarters (77%) of Gen-Z respondents said they can learn from older colleagues, with leadership (44%) and problem solving (40%), communication (39%) and organisational skills (39%) being areas most cited where over 50s excel.
Benefits to business: Although President Trump's recent closure of US diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes may be a blow for workforce diversity globally, DEI can lead to greater creativity, innovation and profitability. According to Forbes, firms that display culturally and ethnically diverse executive teams are 33% more likely to lead their industries in profitability. When people feel welcomed for who they are, they perform at a higher level which, in turn, enables the business to attract the best people.
Benefits to the economy: By continuing to engage in the world of work, silver interns contribute to society in more ways than one. A survey from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that found that people in their 70s in 2022 had the same cognitive and physical function as people in their 50s in 2000 and their physical health was the same as 56-year-olds 25 years ago based on grip strength and lung functionality tests. Since they are sharper and stronger than they were a quarter of a century ago, midlife jobseekers could work far longer - and with an ageing global population that is projected to increase by 11 years between 2020 and the end of the century, the spending power of midlifers has positive implications for the wider economy.
Instead of worrying about the grey hairs, let's put that grey matter to good use and not only refresh recruitment models, but also reinvent midlife careers with storytelling.

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