Your Career, Act II: Thriving in the New Economy

Are you up for a job change? Maybe even a career change? This may be the best time to position yourself for work you really want, say career counselors.

The climate couldn't be better for ThirdAgers, asserts Beverly Goldberg, vice president of New York's Century Foundation and author of Age Works: What Corporate America Must Do to Survive the Graying of the Workforce (The Free Press, 1999). Jobs that required some combination of physical strength and fixed hours at a set location are giving way to jobs that often can be done anywhere, any time. "New jobs replace old jobs with a speed we have never seen before," says Goldberg. These opportunities require well-developed communications skills, an area in which ThirdAgers often excel.

The new jobs also call for experience, which is becoming even more important than formal credentials. New technology companies that are powering the economy increasingly realize that piloting the rocket is as important to its future health as is getting it off the launch pad. Raking in those IPO dollars is just the beginning. If start-ups are to grow up, they need the same management skills that made oldsters such as IBM and GE great.

This quest for experience boosts the prospects of ThirdAgers who have gone through downsizings or have taken time off from work to care for children or elderly parents. Just a few years back, gaps in a work history may have been perceived as significant negatives. Companies in the new economy are not only ready to ignore such gaps, they may even see them as positives. Willingness to take on risk is prized, as is flexibility. And experiences gained outside of the workplace count more than ever.

More good news for ThirdAgers is that employers are willing to be flexible in evaluating experience. Present yourself as a set of skills, rather than as, say, a 20-year AT&T or U.S. Steel veteran, and you are New Economy material because it's not where you've been anymore--but what you can do.

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