I’m 50 and need to get a job. What should I do?

[Anonymous]

This is a very old thread. Presumably, the OP has found a job by now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the same boat. You kind of have to think outside the box. Society wants to make 50 year old women believe they are worthless but you have to sort of elevate your own status and think of all your skills as counting for something. What are you good at? Since you have a background in sociology, could you become a social worker? At least then your education would count for something. If you switch careers it will make your degree seem worthless. The hard part is getting references. The school systems lower the bar so you don't need as many references or can use a personal reference. It might help to get your foot in a door, even if it's like a month long Amazon warehouse job or a school instructional assistant. Then you can at least put something recent on a resume and switch to something better. There are also work from home jobs like in customer service but you might need a year of retail experience. You can also try part time clerical jobs. Older women sometimes just start their own business, like you could teach teens to drive or start a maid service. You could try freelancing or the gig economy or find a caretaking job on care.com. I know at our age we've been to school, done that, don't feel like going back again. Have you tried career counseling?

If you have not worked for the last 20 years, why do you deserve a career suddenly. You took a risk staying home…it did not work. I worked the entire time and had kids. Too risky not to. At 50, man or woman, if you have not been employed for 20 years…or even 10…sorry, you are pretty much worthless for employment.

Someone who hasn’t worked in 20 years isn’t a threat to your career. Why are you so opposed of someone applying for job if they haven’t worked in 20 years? Are you also unwilling to hire recent college grads? They haven’t worked in 20 years.

It’s to the benefit of society that OP finds an entry-level role and builds a nest egg for her future.

This is an obtuse comparison. The new grad has more runway than a 50yo.

Exactly

50 year olds can bring a lot of life experience to the job. They can learn fast. Staying at home with managing multiple kids means you develop good organisational and multi tasking skills. We have hired a couple of stay at home moms with good success.
They are independent and need a lot less guidance and managing than 22 year olds. Their communication skills and ability to handle stress is also much better

NP. Plus they can probably write well and they’re not afraid of phone calls.

Lol Yes! But truthfully the 50 year olds I know have struggled with the computer programs in most modern jobs. If you haven’t used word, excel, or web based apps in 50 years they are heavy in almost any job. I would start taking tech classes with your local library first.

Did you seriously just suggest 50 year olds have not used computers in 50 years?? 😂😂 Do you think the newborns 50 years ago were using computers upon exiting their mother’s womb and then stopped??

😂😂

Personal computers were only getting started in 1974 and mainframes that filled a whole room were more common.

But I’m just a dumb person in their 50s who programmed websites back in the day using hand coded HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and created revenue projections with Excel, so what do I know?

I’m sure what you create with Claude, Perplexity, or ChatGPT is much better, pumpkin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I volunteer for a church that helps refugees. Literally all Ukrainian women who got the parole status during the war are gainfully employed in their 40-50s. Music teachers, system analysts, contract specialists in large banks, elderly care, nursing. A whole variety of professions . Earnings range from 30k/year to 120k/year after 2-4 years in the US, and these are women with less than perfect English.

I myself went back to office after 10 years SAH and make close to 180k five years in. My mom is 74 and she uses MS Office without any issues

Having a job is not as much of an achievement as many working moms try to present here. Most people are capable to re-enter the job market - it’s the US, not the war-torn Ukraine, ladies !

Just the way you say this. I think many working women especially those who are ambitious think of working as having a career - longevity, exposure to new and different challenges, building credibility in their field, achieving a level of mastery - as opposed to just ‘landing a job.’ Getting a job isn’t interesting at all. Being seen as an expert or The Expert in an industry or field is impressive.

We are discussing just getting a normal/average office job in this thread. This is totally attainable for OP at 50. A bunch of women who combined parenting with career came here to trash OP. But in reality if you look up job satisfaction ratings, most people (men and women) are miserable at work. They are not experts in any unique fields and just work to get a paycheck, and their jobs are primitive regardless of the job title.
I had a fancy job title and a great salary but was ordering pencils in real terms. I don't see how it's more intellectual than raising kids, sorry not sorry.

I know people like you - Kinda bitter and resentful. I also know people who are doing oncology research, or doing speaking engagements in Dubai, and writing books. Just because your job choices let you down don’t project your feelings onto others who are building something or doing something that is important to them.

[Anonymous]

I was you and went to get my RN then BSN paid for while working at hospital (had a previous bachelors and career as well which helped). Late 40s. I work as a BSN nurse $115,000. But would make more in hospital. Retirement, health insurance, etc. it’s never too late, you are never too old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I volunteer for a church that helps refugees. Literally all Ukrainian women who got the parole status during the war are gainfully employed in their 40-50s. Music teachers, system analysts, contract specialists in large banks, elderly care, nursing. A whole variety of professions . Earnings range from 30k/year to 120k/year after 2-4 years in the US, and these are women with less than perfect English.

I myself went back to office after 10 years SAH and make close to 180k five years in. My mom is 74 and she uses MS Office without any issues

Having a job is not as much of an achievement as many working moms try to present here. Most people are capable to re-enter the job market - it’s the US, not the war-torn Ukraine, ladies !

Just the way you say this. I think many working women especially those who are ambitious think of working as having a career - longevity, exposure to new and different challenges, building credibility in their field, achieving a level of mastery - as opposed to just ‘landing a job.’ Getting a job isn’t interesting at all. Being seen as an expert or The Expert in an industry or field is impressive.

We are discussing just getting a normal/average office job in this thread. This is totally attainable for OP at 50. A bunch of women who combined parenting with career came here to trash OP. But in reality if you look up job satisfaction ratings, most people (men and women) are miserable at work. They are not experts in any unique fields and just work to get a paycheck, and their jobs are primitive regardless of the job title.
I had a fancy job title and a great salary but was ordering pencils in real terms. I don't see how it's more intellectual than raising kids, sorry not sorry.

I know people like you - Kinda bitter and resentful. I also know people who are doing oncology research, or doing speaking engagements in Dubai, and writing books. Just because your job choices let you down don’t project your feelings onto others who are building something or doing something that is important to them.

I’m not bitter or resentful. The PP bashing OPs skills and abilities was really obnoxious and full of themselves.
It’s just the fact that most corporate jobs (particular those held by moms) are unassuming.
I don’t dispute that there are women super successful doing research etc but they are outliers and not the general rule. In most cases these high achieving women sacrifice having kids in favor of their personal aspirations. This thread is not about them .
OP was just asking how to get an average office job

[Anonymous]

Wow, so much disdain for SAHMs and ageism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in the same boat. You kind of have to think outside the box. Society wants to make 50 year old women believe they are worthless but you have to sort of elevate your own status and think of all your skills as counting for something. What are you good at? Since you have a background in sociology, could you become a social worker? At least then your education would count for something. If you switch careers it will make your degree seem worthless. The hard part is getting references. The school systems lower the bar so you don't need as many references or can use a personal reference. It might help to get your foot in a door, even if it's like a month long Amazon warehouse job or a school instructional assistant. Then you can at least put something recent on a resume and switch to something better. There are also work from home jobs like in customer service but you might need a year of retail experience. You can also try part time clerical jobs. Older women sometimes just start their own business, like you could teach teens to drive or start a maid service. You could try freelancing or the gig economy or find a caretaking job on care.com. I know at our age we've been to school, done that, don't feel like going back again. Have you tried career counseling?

If you have not worked for the last 20 years, why do you deserve a career suddenly. You took a risk staying home…it did not work. I worked the entire time and had kids. Too risky not to. At 50, man or woman, if you have not been employed for 20 years…or even 10…sorry, you are pretty much worthless for employment.

Someone who hasn’t worked in 20 years isn’t a threat to your career. Why are you so opposed of someone applying for job if they haven’t worked in 20 years? Are you also unwilling to hire recent college grads? They haven’t worked in 20 years.

It’s to the benefit of society that OP finds an entry-level role and builds a nest egg for her future.

This is an obtuse comparison. The new grad has more runway than a 50yo.

Exactly

50 year olds can bring a lot of life experience to the job. They can learn fast. Staying at home with managing multiple kids means you develop good organisational and multi tasking skills. We have hired a couple of stay at home moms with good success.
They are independent and need a lot less guidance and managing than 22 year olds. Their communication skills and ability to handle stress is also much better

NP. Plus they can probably write well and they’re not afraid of phone calls.

Lol Yes! But truthfully the 50 year olds I know have struggled with the computer programs in most modern jobs. If you haven’t used word, excel, or web based apps in 50 years they are heavy in almost any job. I would start taking tech classes with your local library first.

Did you seriously just suggest 50 year olds have not used computers in 50 years?? 😂😂 Do you think the newborns 50 years ago were using computers upon exiting their mother’s womb and then stopped??

😂😂

Personal computers were only getting started in 1974 and mainframes that filled a whole room were more common.

But I’m just a dumb person in their 50s who programmed websites back in the day using hand coded HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and created revenue projections with Excel, so what do I know?

I’m sure what you create with Claude, Perplexity, or ChatGPT is much better, pumpkin.

This is so true. The age group that struggles the most with computer skills is …. twenty year olds! At my first job post divorce I got tired explaining to recent colleges grads (from very decent schools as it was a large government contracture) basic functions like print to PDF and VLOOKUP.
They use chatGPT and have no Office skills whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, so much disdain for SAHMs and ageism.

And what’s the worst, it comes from other women. Who think for some reason that they made a superior life choice pulling off two jobs at the same time - their “highly important” corporate career and raising kids.
And because they are bitter of that 24/7 they sustained for years, they get very mad and when someone like OP finds “shortcuts” to the same spot in a corporate ladder after a long gap SAH.

[Anonymous]

I made it back into the work force at 51 after a 10-year break and am making $120K. I don’t plan on working until 65 so I have a (self-imposed) shelf life as a working person. If I had to work until 65 I would do it and be grateful to have the work, but I am so, so tired. I don’t know how people manage to work full-time and raise a family. I realize how privileged I was to be able to stay home and still be able to save for college and retirement. I hope my children have that option even if they choose differently.