Matt Feret (00:15):

Hello everyone. This is Matt Feret, author of the prepared for Medicare book series. And welcome to another episode of the Matt Feret show, where I interview insiders and experts to help light a path to a successful retirement.

Matt Feret (00:28):

My guest today is Mike McDonough. Mike is a recruiter with General Search & Recruitment. You know, Pew research published an article not too long ago, which reported half of older US adults are now retired. Many of them yanked the cord during the COVID-19 recession and subsequent great resignation.

Matt Feret (00:46):

I wanted to talk to Mike about the job market and specifically the job market for older workers, over the age of 55. Turns out he thinks it's red hot and never been better. LinkedIn has been a game changer for job seekers and recruiters alike. We explore how to best use it, but perhaps more importantly, designing your profile correctly.

Matt Feret (01:06):

Mike and I also spent some time talking about how resumes have changed, what should be on them, and what shouldn't be. We talked about ageism and how the opportunities for second and even third careers for older workers are readily available right now. Just because there were lots of retirements over the last two years, people can and do un-retire. If they do, they might just find they're in the driver's seat to command the job and the income they have always wanted to have. Let's jump in.

Matt Feret (01:34):

Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike McDonough (01:36):

Well, Hey Matt, thanks for having me. Good to have you.

Matt Feret (01:40):

All right. So we get started with a little bit of get to know Mike. So let's start for, with, what do you do? How do you help people?

Mike McDonough (01:48):

All right. Well, I am an executive recruiter with General Search & Recruitment. I have been doing this for 41 years and I work nationwide out of Chicago, Illinois. And my concentration, my practice, is the insurance industry. That includes the property, casualty, the benefits, professional liability, personal lines, just across the board, primarily placing insurance people: brokers, re-insurers, third party administrators. And I stumbled into this. When I went to find a job 41 years ago they hired me, and I ended up getting a job there and then buying the company, and I've been at the same place for 41 years.

Matt Feret (02:30):

That's fantastic. It's a hot job market out there right now.

Mike McDonough (02:34):

Very.

Matt Feret (02:34):

A lot of opportunity, a lot of wage inflation, a lot of real inflation all over the news. But I really wanted to talk to you today about, how does the older worker, what are the opportunities for a second or even a third career transition? And I thought we might tackle it by decades.

Matt Feret (02:53):

So I was thinking maybe 55 plus, 65 plus, even 75 plus, and kind of figure out what the environment is like today for workers who are, A) still working, B) thinking about making a transition. Much has been talked about around the gig economy, if you will, either by choice or by circumstance. But I just thought ... I want to hear it. 55 plus, let's start with that 55 to 65 range. What's the job market like? Where do you see growth? Where do you see skills applying and people moving into second or even third careers?

Mike McDonough (03:32):

Well, 55 is white hot. The shortages in that space are off the charts. Clients can't find people that age group. There are probably four 55 year olds for every 10 65 year olds.

Matt Feret (03:51):

Wow.

Mike McDonough (03:51):

So the drop in the demographics of our nation in all industries, for that age group, the Xers and the Yers are just ... They're just not there. So there is no magic formula. If you're that age right now, you guys are the hottest commodity in the job market.

Mike McDonough (04:14):

And most people, whether it's the insurance industry or other industries that I've worked with, I would advise them to play to their strengths. And that means do what they love doing. And if they want to do it part-time, they want to do it remotely, they want to do it in another part of the country. Clients can't find enough of you and you can really leverage the shortages in that age group to your advantage.

Mike McDonough (04:40):

So this is your time if you are in that age group. It's just an amazing, amazing time. 20, 30, 40, 50% bumps in salaries are not unheard of because of the shortages there.

Matt Feret (04:55):

Oh, wow.

Mike McDonough (04:56):

That's always what they're asking for, too. They don't call me up and say, "Hey, Mike, could you find us a 65 or a 75 year old?" They'll say, "Mike, find me a 45 to 55 year old that still has a little more runway left." They don't come out and say it that way, but the idea being they want to get a return on their investment.

Matt Feret (05:16):

Well, that's interesting you say that because I've done ... I'm obviously attuned to this, but I've always sensed to a lot of ageism. It's almost like people get a little gray hair, and they hit 55, and all of a sudden there's a downsizing or there's an early retirement. And it seems ... I don't know about unique to our economy, but it also seems lately that's been turning a little bit and you just kind of validated that. That due to that demographic change of 65 plus, and the rate at which they're retiring, there really is some silver lining, it sounds like, from 55 plus.

Mike McDonough (05:52):

There really is. And the ability to customize your quality of life for that group, it has never been better. They have the absolute most leverage that I have seen in 41 years. It's absolutely phenomenal.

Mike McDonough (06:09):

Moving on to the 65 year olds, they're still a hot commodity, too. And you'd be surprised how many are still actively working. Quick story, I talked with a guy this week. He's 67 when I placed him. I said, "How's it going?" He says, "Well, they're trying to push me out." I said, "Well, how old are you?" He said, "Well, I'm 78." And I said, "You're kidding." I said, "Do you want to quit?" He said, "No, I'm still having fun." And so people can work beyond those ages that people throw out there. It's your call.

Mike McDonough (06:45):

Not every employer is as open to that. You might have to go from a big employer to a small employer, or from a publicly traded one to a privately held one. But there's always a demand for somebody who loves their work and who contributes to others around them, into your eighties. I mean that sincerely, there are people that are working in their eighties right now that are contributing to mankind and everything else.

Matt Feret (07:14):

Sure.

Mike McDonough (07:14):

So the 65 to 75 range is still active. I have three or four people that are actively interviewing, in my practice, for jobs where the clients are thrilled to get that amount of experience because they can't grow it themselves. The thirties to forties don't have it yet. They can't find enough 50 year olds. So the 65 year olds have come back into popularity and companies are realizing that the shortages and the lack of ... Nobody has a good succession plan.

Mike McDonough (07:46):

Nobody knows what to do with everybody that's exiting. So now some of the smarter companies are bringing people back. Part-time full-time, letting them do whatever they want, make their schedule anything they want, their hours. They can work remotely. They can come in from California to New York once a week, and they're happy with that.

Mike McDonough (08:10):

So they still have a lot of leveraging power in their 65 year old. The 75 year olds, a little different. Most of the people that I run across in that age group who are still working are usually working either because they needed to, or because they love what they're doing. Most people are starting to let it go. It's very difficult to change directions at that stage of the career. So if you want to do a second in gig, it's probably doing part of what you used to do on a smaller scale.

Matt Feret (08:45):

Okay.

Mike McDonough (08:46):

So if it's servicing customers, or prospecting, or doing telemarketing instead of a full sales gig, they can do parts of it without doing all of it and still find joy, and companies still want them.

Mike McDonough (09:04):

But you couldn't go into a totally new career at that stage because the companies perceive that the training curve for you to learn their style and their way of doing it is too great and it's going to take too long. So the other big thing that I tell people ... I work primarily with white collar folks so I don't have a lot of exposure to the labor, but if you can take an Excel course and get strong in your Excel spreadsheets.

Matt Feret (09:36):

Yeah.

Mike McDonough (09:37):

That skillset alone, that anybody can pick up, will give you enough systems understanding and technical expertise to learn any application out there and do it well.

Matt Feret (09:48):

Just plain old Excel? You're saying, go in and learn how to run a spreadsheet?

Mike McDonough (09:51):

Microsoft will teach you. You can learn it online.

Matt Feret (09:54):

Yeah.

Mike McDonough (09:54):

Or you can go to a community college. Just get Excel and you'll be sharp enough for most of the jobs out there.

Matt Feret (10:00):

So you recruit executives. You recruit, I'm sure, not just executives. So that's great news for executives, 55, 45, 65 plus, that ageism seems to be ... At least that it seems to be changing. What about if I'm not an executive? What about if I'm just middle manager, or 20, 30, 40 years doing this, and I want to look for another gig? Is it as strong in the middle manager piece and down as it is, perhaps, from the executive?

Mike McDonough (10:30):

It is. Again, the shortages. They lost 10 boomers for every job. And so the shortages that companies are experiencing, and the shortages of 45 to 55, and 55 to 65 year olds, make this the market that anybody who wants to work can get a job. And so the middle guys are even more sought after because they don't cost as much.

Mike McDonough (11:01):

And with respect to companies, I think it's wise for people to research where they're going and find out what they're walking into. And with social media, it gets a bad rap, but if you look at their website and you looked at their LinkedIn pages, you can figure out very, very quickly by looking at pictures, how diverse and how gray hair friendly a place might be.

Mike McDonough (11:29):

And so the pictures tell the story. And if you see the diversity in age, as well as other ethnicities and people types, you're going to see that they are friendly towards experience. Those are the ones you focus on.

Matt Feret (11:47):

Wow.

Mike McDonough (11:47):

Because they're going to be more friendly towards you because they're advertising, hey, we're friendly to your age group.

Matt Feret (11:53):

Yeah. And they're not advertising it obviously for a whole bunch of reasons and laws. But you're saying, go to LinkedIn and look.

Mike McDonough (12:01):

Go look at LinkedIn, go look at the company's websites. And a lot of companies are right now starting to wake up to the fact that the shortages are real. It all always takes a year or two for employers to catch up with reality. It just takes that long, it's nobody's fault. They're not slow. It just ... Trial and error, trial and error.

Mike McDonough (12:23):

Oh, maybe we should shift a little bit and look at this age group. Or maybe we should consider a bigger search universe and look at people in other parts of the country. They move that way naturally, but they don't move as quickly as individuals do because it's a bigger pool of people and it takes a little longer to get consensus. It just takes longer. A year, sometimes two.

Matt Feret (12:44):

Makes sense. So let's go second career. Second career, let's say I did ... I am 55, or I'm 60, or 62, but I'm not done yet. I still want to keep going. And I've been downsized, riffed, whatever phrase you want to use. We know what they all mean at some level.

Matt Feret (13:06):

Beyond the Excel spreadsheet experience you already mentioned, what if you just want to do something a little different? How does someone approach a second career when they've spent perhaps decades in finance or decades in sales or decades in teaching school? And so not necessarily blue collar to white collar, but let's just say white collar to white collar, but something different.

Matt Feret (13:28):

You mentioned earlier, stick with your strengths. How do you retool around that? And how do you ... How does the resume look? What's the process, Mike?

Mike McDonough (13:38):

Well, it's more reflective, and getting in touch with your own emotions and your own thoughts. For us guys, there's supposed to be more trouble doing that than with the gals. But that aside, you really need to, at this stage of life, figure out what you want to be when you grow up. You need to figure out what you do best. And then you need to create a new why for what you're doing.

Mike McDonough (14:04):

So let's say, again, you like to solve problems and you like to be with customers and you like communicating with people. That's a nice to-do list to start with. Then you probably want to look for industries that are growing. And then you look at your life story on the resume, or your social media profile, or even talk with your spouse to see what you're best at.

Mike McDonough (14:29):

And you start making a list. And a hypothetical list might look like this: I love to solve problems. I enjoy people. And I like to communicate. Well, those three things are needed in many industries.

Matt Feret (14:46):

Sure.

Mike McDonough (14:46):

So look for a growth industry, whether it's healthcare, whether it is insurance, whether it is manufacturing, wherever you have identified roles that require those skills, those are the ones that you should look at. If they're in your backyard, in the neighborhood that you're in, why try to put a big commute on yourself? There's probably a lot more opportunity closer to you than you realize, but you have to develop the eyes and you have to know what you have to offer.

Mike McDonough (15:19):

You have to offer a work ethic. I have a good work history. I've been successful solving problems in this industry. Work on scripting your value proposition as if you were selling yourself. And basically, that's what you're doing. You're showing somebody else what you do best, and how what you do best can help them solve their problems. Most people can do that. You just have to slow down and think about it.

Matt Feret (15:47):

Talk to me about the actual resume. So if I haven't been out in the job field in a while, I know LinkedIn is social media, but that's a whole thing. I've been seeing, Mike, in the olden days ...

Mike McDonough (15:59):

Less is more.

Matt Feret (15:59):

... You put a resume out there. You put your name, your address, your phone number, your email address. And I've seen, lately, it's name, maybe the location, and a cell phone number and that's it. Has even that changed?

Mike McDonough (16:14):

It has, but the key for you is to make it easy for the employer to figure out what you do best.

Matt Feret (16:23):

Okay.

Mike McDonough (16:23):

So less is more. They have algorithms out there looking for keywords, and ways to package it and say it, and all this other ... If you're a customer service representative, or you're a sales executive, or you're an underwriter, or an actuary, or a claims person, you don't need to write a paragraph about the function of what you're doing.

Mike McDonough (16:49):

Say in one or two sentences, I solve these kind of problems. I loved overcoming these kind of challenges. And I played well with others. That's enough. They can take it from there. You don't need to write a book, just a bullet point or two for each one of them.

Mike McDonough (17:06):

What you're supposed to do with the resume is create interest, not give a specific point by point history from fourth grade til now. You're supposed to show people what you are and why bringing you on board will help them solve their problems.

Mike McDonough (17:25):

One of the biggest keys is becoming other-minded, and that's hard. To get outside of yourself and look at how your skills are going to help others is half the battle. If you can shift over towards being other-minded and what your strengths are going to do for them, and stay on that plane, it'll help you articulate it on the interview as well as on the resume.

Matt Feret (17:46):

Oh, that's very interesting. So even though you've got a storied career, say 20, 30, even 40 years long, and you've got a lot of accomplishments, you're advising to back out of the minutia to say, look what I've done, and really go towards the, look what I can do and the type of person I am. Is that what I'm getting?

Mike McDonough (18:05):

Absolutely. I mean, the story I would tell ... Do you remember when doctors made house calls?

Matt Feret (18:10):

No, but I know they did.

Mike McDonough (18:12):

They did. Okay. Trust me, I'm that old. But they used to. And the point being, they would come in with a very professional manner. They would have a way about conducting themselves, and they would ask questions to try to find out what was wrong with the patients. And then they would help them ... Prescribe the medicine, or do this, or do that.

Mike McDonough (18:34):

That's what you're doing when you're trying to shift careers. You're trying to find out what somebody's problems are and let them know how you can help them solve those problems. It's real simple. Keep it simple. The who, what, when, where, why and how questions are all you need. And you need to be an active listener. You need to really focus on what their needs are. And nine times out of 10, that'll be so different and unique, you'll get hired

Matt Feret (19:01):

On the resume, do you put years after a certain point? Because I've read this, too, no one cares more than 10 years. But also, if you put years of, let's say, college graduation, or anything longer than 10, it does tip the age to the person who's looking at it. What's your advice?

Mike McDonough (19:21):

My advice is to tip the age and to be intentional. And my reason for that is ... And I talked with a guy about this today. He had 33 years of experience and he had taken that advice. And so here he was, this executive with the last 10 years showcased on his resume. But you didn't know how he got there, and it created more questions of uncertainty than it did confidence by not having those other three jobs that he had in his work history.

Mike McDonough (19:52):

So then he had to figure out a way to make that look reasonable on the resume, and it just didn't look right. So then you started wondering, what's he hiding? And any of the social media people that tell you about how to put your LinkedIn profile?

Matt Feret (20:07):

Yeah.

Mike McDonough (20:07):

They tell you the same thing. They tell you to make it other-minded. What do you get by having you as a connection? What's in it for them is what they coach you to do. Well, the resume, same thing. The interview, the same thing. It's not all different things. It's still trying to connect to people on whether or not you can help them solve their problems.

Mike McDonough (20:29):

After all, they wouldn't be talking to you about joining their team in a part-time, full-time, new experience role, if they didn't have a problem. So keep it about them and whether or not you can help them with their problems, and you're going to be much better received than talking about all of your own bells and whistles.

Mike McDonough (20:48):

The big knock on the boomer age group was that they were stuck on their old successes too much. And the employers were afraid to hire them because they had all this baggage and stuff they needed to unlearn in the new world.

Mike McDonough (21:03):

Well, when they stopped talking about that and started talking about how they love to keep learning and growing, and they have the same passions, but with different wording.

Matt Feret (21:13):

Yeah.

Mike McDonough (21:14):

They started getting hired again, left over right, because their foundational work ethic was in place and their attitude of being cooperative became a little more heightened and easier to digest.

Matt Feret (21:26):

Resume. Let's say, you're getting back out there after a couple years and you're trying to switch careers. Should you hire someone to look at your resume if it's been a while since you've, you've done one? I mean, you've clearly outlined the way you need to tweak your resume, right? You don't want to just, basically, rely on bullet points of what you've done and accomplished in the past.

Matt Feret (21:44):

It is essentially, I think what I'm hearing, is you got to sell yourself as the person, but also what you can bring to the company. Not necessarily just a bunch of bullet points saying what you've done in the past. Is it worth it to hire somebody to help you with that resume? Have they changed that much?

Mike McDonough (22:01):

They haven't changed that much. In fact, a suggestion I would make that's free, and a good starting point if you do have your LinkedIn profile. And I would recommend that because they're being used and reviewed all the time for everybody that's getting hired.

Mike McDonough (22:20):

If you go in there and you play with it a little bit, they will actually take your profile and turn it into a PDF for you. There's a button you can do to take your own profile and make it a PDF. Go ahead and download that. Print it out. Then start editing and cutting and pasting and changing it until it feels right for you. And use that to put together the resume.

Mike McDonough (22:46):

So use their format, use their style, use their tools as a starting point. And then once you have that, and it's in writing, and you printed it off of their PDF, you can mix and match it yourself to tweak it to reflect the way you want to be received: the transparency, the character, the attitude, the communication skills, the stability, the willingness to learn and play well with others.

Mike McDonough (23:14):

Whatever those skills are that are uniquely yours, make sure that they jump off the page because people sometimes need to be reminded of what the strengths are in a resume. So don't worry about having more information. Try to have the right information and create interest. Think of a resume as an invite to a discussion, a problem solving session, a chance to brainstorm and see if you two can solve that problem together.

Mike McDonough (23:49):

And I think if you shift a little bit that way, it can be kind of fun. Because you can make different versions. You can make one as a leader, you can make one as an individual contributor, you can make one as a subject matter expert on Medicare, or whatever it is that you feel that you want the world to know that you're very strong at. You can shift and create much more freely in this job market than you ever could before.

Mike McDonough (24:16):

In the old days you had ... This is the format. If you didn't get it, then you weren't considered. Now it's such a wide open page that it's easier, but you need to stay focused on who you are and what's in it for them.

Matt Feret (24:31):

Let's talk about the other side of the coin, which is you're 55, you're 65. You've been laid off. You've been riffed. I know just from my experience and being around others in this situation, that normally, if you work for a corporation, they'll give you some type of transition service and it'll be some firm that'll help you find your strengths in trying to find some other placement.

Matt Feret (24:53):

What's your advice? Again, given this hot job market, if you're riffed, or laid off, or it's just plain old, closed down. Talk to me about the process and the stage if you're 55 plus, 65 plus and you get laid off.

Mike McDonough (25:09):

I'm a firm believer of taking advantage of those resources. You know, you need support. You need to cry and let out your pain. And you need to work through and forgive your employer, that maybe you were a little too close to. You need to loosen your grip on who you were there and go through a cycle of mourning and letting that go before you become ready for the next employer.

Mike McDonough (25:39):

And so I'm all for taking advantage of those types of coaching and executive directives that you can get from outplacement or other services like that. I don't always agree with their strategies. Sometimes they give you a shotgun approach and say, try six industries that you aren't really all that interested in because they're hiring there.

Mike McDonough (26:05):

Well, I wouldn't do that. I would keep myself focused on industries I'm interested in and where I felt that I could contribute. If you get too far away from who you are and what you feel you're good at, you're just going to have a harder time acclimating to the new role. Going to a new company is still stressful. Making new friends is stressful. Starting over is stressful.

Mike McDonough (26:31):

So I would try to lighten the load and play to areas where you can find common grounds by staying in a similar industry, staying in a similar geographic area where you know how to get there every day When you do get back in the office on a regular routine. Working remotely is a big deal now. There's some states that are wide open. There are other states that are still quite shut down.

Mike McDonough (26:58):

And the big topic now isn't your ability to shift gears, but your ability to work in an office is often the biggest topic that employers and talent acquisition people bring to our ... Well, we're willing to give flexible hours now. We're willing to let people work remotely.

Mike McDonough (27:16):

So if you are comfortable going back into an office and you enjoyed working in an office, that's actually a selling point now.

Matt Feret (27:26):

Really?

Mike McDonough (27:27):

Yeah. A lot of young people don't want to go in because they're still raising their kids and the daycare challenge is so hard for them, and it's just too many balls in the air for them. So as a more seasoned worker, your willingness to go into an office can become a selling point. That's the only work culture you used to know. And that's where you enjoyed work and relationships and friends and that whole culture.

Mike McDonough (27:52):

A lot of the younger workers are a little gun shy of that right now. And for good reasons, I'm not finding fault there, but I'm saying that that could be an additional advantage you might have in that older age group that you talked about,

Matt Feret (28:07):

Mike, what question or questions should I have asked you that I didn't?

Mike McDonough (28:10):

I think that the biggest question that goes through my mind that you didn't ask was, whether or not you know why you're working at an older level? If it's because you need more money in your retirement plan, or you need to make ends meet, or what have you. I think sorting through the why is very, very important. There are jobs out there. This is an employee's market. If you want to work, you can find it.

Mike McDonough (28:44):

But it's very important to know why. Because if you don't know why, you're going to have a hard time convincing that employer why they should hire you. And it's very, very important to sort through the why. And a lot of people are so busy getting back on the treadmill, they forget to slow down and think that piece through. So that would be the only question that I would add to your mix.

Matt Feret (29:10):

Thank you. That's really inspiring. It sounds like everybody out there listening and watching should be ... I mean, invigorated. I feel great. I mean, you said it, it's an employee's market right now. Do you think it'll last?

Mike McDonough (29:26):

I think at least three more years, even if the economy goes down and slows down. And Amazon is hiring people away from assisted living facilities, from McDonald's. Everybody's leaving and going to work from Amazon, and they're still not able to hire enough people right now. And I believe that that demand will be there for at least another three to five years. So yes, you're going to see this continue and get refined as we open up more and more.

Mike McDonough (29:57):

But right now the inability to fill that [inaudible 00:30:02] hole in the shortages of people, there is no other alternative, and it's kind of attractive for both the younger and the older worker right now. It's a great time to upgrade your job or to change jobs.

Mike McDonough (30:17):

And if you're an employer, you've got to be creative. You've got to take the time to really think about how you're going to solve the problems, because you're not going to have the same flow of applicants that you did three, four years ago.

Matt Feret (30:30):

Mike, thank you very much for spending the time with us, and with me, today. Tell everybody out there how we can find you on the internet and how to get in touch with you if they're interested in learning more.

Mike McDonough (30:41):

Sure. My website is General Search & Recruitment, www.G-S-R, the number four, Y-O-U.com. So that's gsr4you.com. My phone number is 312-922-6664. And my email is my Mike@gsr4you.com.

Matt Feret (31:06):

My thanks to Mike for imparting his wisdom. Be sure to connect with him at gsr4you.com. that's gsr4you.com. You can call him direct at 312-922-6664, or email him at mike@gsr4you.com. Please also subscribe to the Matt Feret Show YouTube channel, and please help out and rate the show on iTunes or your podcast platform provider of choice.

Matt Feret (31:36):

You can sign up for the Prepare for Medicare newsletter at prepareformedicare.com. You can also check out the show notes and episode links at mattferet.com. And of course, don't forget to buy my book for you or a loved one, makes a great gift. Prepare for Medicare: The Insider's Guide to Buying Medicare Insurance is on sale at Amazon and other fine retailers near you. Until next time, to your wealth, wisdom, and wellness. I'm Matt Feret, and thanks for tuning in.