Looking for a last job from which to retire?
We have an interesting customer demographic: the lion’s share of our customers are in their 40s and 50s. They’ve proven themselves in their careers – med device, biotech, pharma. They want to find a final place to work – ride out the next 10 years or so – have fun, sell something really meaningful – make good coin. They don’t want to be back in the job search mode again every three years – which seems to be the new normal.
So what to do? Best to reverse-engineer the answer – start at the end: As we look at the year 2018 we see some interesting themes in stories of our candidates that landed the types of roles detailed above. There is enough insight – given a sampling size of approx. 150 – 200 candidates – to warrant a listing of things you can do now to reach the promised land: a great place for older workers to hang out and retire.
Seriously consider downgrading from a senior sales role (Director, manager) – herding cats was fun at one time when you were younger. Think about switching to a solo contributor role. Something where you are the product/subject expert and you are responsible for your own performance – not others.
Talk to someone who is working at a company you heard good things about re: corporate culture. Industry awards and accolades are nice, Glassdoor is nice, but nothing beats speaking to a senior-level sales person who works there. Ask them key questions, like: what is your competitive advantage? Who are your main competitors and what are you doing to close the gap on business vs them? What’s in the product pipeline and when do key products go off patent/license? Ask them about how the company invests in its older workers.
Linkedin is a brilliant tool for determining the age of a companies work force and tenure worked there. It takes some digging – but you’ll quickly identify those companies open to hiring older professionals. Look at the older sales professionals on their staff, see when they started working there. Give preference to those companies where older sales professionals were hired in the last 2-3 years – that’s an indicator to the corporate culture.
If you are in your later years of your career, guess what – you are in your prime years – you have so much to offer – you should be finishing off your career somewhere you love, having fun and minimizing your stress levels.
If this is your goal, put down that Metamucil and call us; we’d like to help you find a home. And when we do, we’d like you to be one of our several hundred “trust agents” (previous customers, now part of employee referral programs) who can open doors at your new employer. Yes, this is “Pay it Forward” time.
Mark Bartz