If you’ve scrolled LinkedIn recently, you’ve likely seen posts bemoaning the dreadful job market, particularly for women over 40. A flurry of media have reported on the challenges of midlife job hunting and the discrimination that, some say, is baked into AI screening processes. A new term has even been coined: ‘doomjobbing’, which describes the grim scroll through vacancy after vacancy as you fire CVs into the void.
For those who are looking for work, all this publicity may have been a comforting confirmation that you’re not alone. Almost half of women and 40% of men told a recent survey by AJ Bell that they found it harder to get a job in midlife. This is due to a ‘polycrisis of factors’, says Isabel Berwick, the Financial Times’ workplace expert and author of The Future-Proof Career. Thanks to technical advances, there are fewer jobs around and more applicants – but, she adds, there are also specific issues facing women over 40: ‘Algorithmic bias, gendered ageism and a perception that older people might be more expensive.’
Employers don’t publicly share how they use AI to screen applicants, but anecdotally many women feel they’re being filtered out of jobs due to their age. ‘These systems may be checked for race and sex bias, but age is rarely given the same scrutiny,’ says Lyndsey Simpson, founder of 55/Redefined and author of The Age Rebellion.
Still, what’s very important is not to lose faith and become disheartened by all the noise. Experts say there is work out there, and there are better ways to find it.
Midlife women should start by thinking about who they know, explains Berwick. ‘Networks count. The mums in the playground, the people at your sports club, at your church, at the food bank where you volunteer – all of this is network.’ When employers are handling large numbers of applications, a personal connection might just give you an edge. As Berwick says, ‘People hire people.’
Similarly, it’s worth identifying ‘your tribe’, advises Lucy Standing, a chartered psychologist and founder of Brave Starts, a non-profit that helps midlifers with career transitions. If you can form a group with other people in the same position as you, you can support each other through the job seeking process, as well as making those all-important connections.
When it comes to deciding what to apply for, ‘Think laterally,’ says Berwick. Are you trying to get into the same jobs you’ve had before? It might be that AI has so heavily disrupted your industry that certain roles don’t exist any more, in which case you might want to shift – or perhaps you have a side hustle that could become your main gig.
‘Some people think, “I couldn’t possibly give up all those skills and close a door on an identity, a salary,”’ says Standing. ‘But others give themselves permission: “I’m going to start from scratch. I’m going to learn something completely new, and I’m excited about it.” For those people, the world is their oyster.’ If you’ve determined that you’re interested in a different sector, reach out to a company and ask if you could shadow somebody for a day. Work experience is not reserved for younger people, and this should give you a sense of whether it’s a path you’d like to follow.
Even if you are new to a career, always own your previous experience, says Simpson. While it may be tempting to ‘Botox’ your CV to remove clues to your age, that would be missing a trick. ‘Do not erase the very thing that makes you valuable,’ says Simpson. ‘A sharp two-page CV is sensible – but stripping away your experience to appear younger means presenting a smaller version of yourself.’
'Don't botox your CV: do not erase the very thing that makes you valuable'
Standing tells her members at Brave Starts that when dealing with a potential employer, they should pre-empt any assumptions about their life stage. ‘All over their CVs, they’ll put things like, “Now I’m 55, I’m not having to do the school run any more, so I can throw more time into my job than I could in my thirties.” Don’t allow someone to form a negative view of your age. If you’re talking positively about it and bringing it to the table, it’s a gift.’
Most importantly, if you’ve had some time out of work, try not to get hung up on it. ‘Refuse the idea that it’s the beginning of the end,’ says Simpson. ‘I would never minimise how unsettling a forced pause can feel, but it can also become a turning point. Your best years are ahead of you, but they need you to plan for them. You need to decide, perhaps for the first time on your own terms, what you want to be when you grow up.’