Are you in your 60s and worried “How do I show people that I’m relevant?”
Frank has been building machine learning systems for bank security for over 20 years…,
…Long before AI was everywhere.
Friends keep saying that someone with Frank’s experience should find work easily. Yet one of the first applications came straight back with a rejection.
Now the question is whether the problem is his age, his resume and LinkedIn, or simply not applying to enough jobs.
So I asked if he could handle some brutal honesty. “Bring it on,” he said.
I told him that, from the patterns I see with our students, ageism in US hiring, unfortunately, is real and will probably be his biggest roadblock.
I’d hate to see Frank waste three months applying for jobs he can do really well, only to hear they want someone younger.
That’s an uphill battle, and I wouldn’t choose to fight it.
His resume, LinkedIn and website were a different story. They are in the top 10% of everything I’d seen in the past couple of months.
When you have 20+ years of experience it’s only a matter of positioning it correctly. And that’s exactly what he did.
In terms of how to get work, the real answer had come from Frank himself.
He described an offer he wanted to sell: “Would you like a DevOps problem solved? 3 days, $6,000.”
Clients would pay a fixed price for a finished result, not for someone sitting in a seat. In other words, contracting / consulting work.
That’s exactly how one of our other students works.
Let’s call him Sam. He’s the same age as Frank and only takes contract work.
Companies pay at least $250 an hour for Sam to solve their problems, and 100 to 150 inquiries come in every week. Every week!
From what I’ve seen, clients don’t care how old you are if you can solve their problems.
So Frank doesn’t need to convince hiring managers that he’s still relevant.
The smarter move is to show clients the problems he’s already solved, and sell the exact offer he described to me.
His reply: “If that’s your brutally honest, I’ll take that gladly every day.”
P.S. If you’re an experienced engineer wondering whether your age is holding you back, hit “Apply”. I’ll tell you what I’d do in your shoes.