Boomer Looking For Work For The First Time In 35 Years Admits The Job Market Is More Difficult In 4 Specific Ways
OPOLJA | Shutterstock If you're of a certain age, you've likely gotten plenty of boomer job search advice, and it was probably composed mostly of telling you to just walk into businesses and drop off your resume as if that wouldn't immediately trigger a security call. And, of course, you'll be accused of simply "not wanting to work" if you express any frustrations about the system at large.
Boomers have a habit of ignoring the wealth of data showing that the economy itself, and not our propensity to overspend on avocado toast, is to blame. But boomer Mike Kelley will not be among those scolding you, at least not anymore. Kelley retired from his 35-year teaching career "because of the excessive demands made on us," but still needed to keep working. He was shocked to find the job market was completely different than when he was young, and shared some of the lessons he learned in a viral Facebook post.
A boomer looking for work for the first time in 35 years admitted the job market is more difficult now in these 4 key ways:
1. 'Dropping off resumes' simply isn't a thing
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The utter absurdity of your boomer dad's number one piece of advice is, unsurprisingly, the first thing Kelley noticed had changed since 35 years ago. Walking into a place of business and asking to hand over your resume to the manager is simply not a reality anymore, even for a job at McDonald's. It hasn't been for ages.
Film buffs will remember the 1970s movie "Kramer vs. Kramer," in which a frantic and down-on-his-luck Dustin Hoffman simply waltzes into an advertising agency ON CHRISTMAS EVE and talks his way into the job he found in a newspaper, which he desperately needs in order to have any hope of getting custody of his son. Sometimes I wonder if this is where these boomers got the notion that this is possible.
Giving out resumes in person is largely a waste of time now, unless you happened to meet the hiring manager at a networking event. As Kelley put it, "You can't just trot around dropping off resumes. No one will talk to you." Right. Like we told you.
2. The actual application process is a nightmare
Kelley's next rude awakening had to do with the insanity of being forced to upload your resume and cover letter to the company's applicant tracking system of choice, only for them to insist that you then spend an hour entering the exact same details into a computer system for reasons no one really understands.
Kelley's frustration was justified. "Filling out applications online is far, far worse than filling them out in person," he said. "They want a resume and a cover letter, then you have to fill out (live, with a 10-minute timeout) the exact same information into their application."
When you add in the fact that most resumes are auto-rejected by the applicant tracking system before a human ever even looks at them, it feels downright diabolical. We told you so.
3. Companies treat applicants like garbage
Gone are the days our parents and grandparents enjoyed when companies had some modicum of manners and professionalism and would reach out to let you know you had not been accepted. Now, mostly, you just never hear a word from anyone ever for any reason. Some companies have even claimed to ghost candidates in an effort to get them to take the hint, because why would a hiring manager ever just tell someone the truth?
Kelley was pretty shocked by this. "You will never, and I mean NEVER, hear from the employer again unless you're hired," he told his fellow boomers. "When I was applying for work in the 1980s, I would get polite form letters rejecting me if they didn't want me. Now, I just get ghosted." Right. Exactly as we've explained to you fifty-eleven times.
4. Jobs are just terrible in general
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The fourth and final thing that shocked Kelley is probably the most galling: Everything he applied for had terrible pay, garbage hours, and benefits that might as well be nonexistent. Unfortunately, employers see no reason to give workers better, even though it would undoubtedly lead to them also getting better applicants.
"Pay is awful. Hours are awful. Benefits are awful," he wrote. "As a pro-union person, I blame it on a dearth of unions. Regardless, it's awful."
A good 40 to 50 years of corporate deregulation and legislative attacks on workers' rights by politicians that the boomers have gleefully voted for since the 1970s, while twirling their villainous mustaches at the rest of us, sure does take a bite, doesn't it? Anyway, say it with me: We tried to tell you.
Hopefully, Kelley's observations will be helpful for boomers everywhere.
Kelley was left with a few ringing conclusions that every boomer desperately needed to hear. "Businesses are awful because they can be," he wrote. "I'm not sure of the solution, but it appears it's going to get worse before it gets better."
He finished by warning those in his generation that believing the lie that young people are lazy and just don't care about work benefits corrupt corporations all the more. Here's hoping that now that it's one of their own telling the truth about the job market, they'll actually listen for once.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
