youtu.be
Can’t Get Hired After 50? The Letter Hiring Managers Deserve
I've applied for what feels like a few thousand jobs at this point and heard back from maybe twelve of them, so if you're also sitting there wondering why nobody will hire you, come sit with me, because I don't think it's you.
This is toxic work culture from the outside, where corporate survivors are too old for the jobs they know and too qualified for the jobs that might actually call back.
After 31 months of job hunting, two résumés, endless application portals, AI interviews, ghost jobs, and enough cheerful little skills assessments to qualify as unpaid consulting, I have some follow-up concerns.
The whole mess sits right where work, money, midlife, and dignity collide. Naturally, the application portal would still like me to upload my résumé and type it all in again.
We get into:
• The career change after 50 nobody mentions: hiding the career you were told to build
• What job hunting looks like when applications eat entire days and still ghost you
• How workplace ageism, an employment gap, and being overqualified become three different ways to reject the same person
• The fake postings and toxic work culture keeping applicants outside and employees afraid to leave
• Why corporate layoffs don’t end on layoff day; they just keep finding new ways to bill you
If you’re living some version of this, tell me the most ridiculous thing a company made you do for a job you didn’t get. I clearly needed another reason to yell at my laptop.
If you want actual humans while you’re stuck in this mess, my 1:1s, workbooks, membership, and Substack are linked below. Subscribe if work, money, midlife, and starting over have become one long group project you never agreed to join.
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Sources mentioned:
LiveCareer — HR Professionals Admit to Posting Ghost Jobs
https://www.livecareer.com/resources/careers/ghost-jobs
ResumeBuilder — 3 in 10 Companies Currently Have Fake Job Postings Listed
https://www.resumebuilder.com/3-in-10-companies-currently-have-fake-job-posting-listed/
#JobSearchAfterLayoff #ToxicWorkCulture #WorkplaceAgeism
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⏰Chapters:⏰
00:00 Dear Hiring Managers
01:06 Trapped by Experience
01:41 Rewriting for Survival
02:36 Side Hustles and Reality
04:03 The Portal Grind
05:56 AI Double Standards
06:44 Interview Hazing and Homework
08:27 Ghost Jobs Exposed
10:58 Talent Shortage Myth
12:54 AI Replacing Knowledge
16:14 The Unemployment Gap Trap
17:42 Final Follow Up and Callout
18:04 Your Stories and Next Steps
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💌 I love getting mail from you! Send them here:
Sheila Hammond
2205 W 136th Ave
Ste 106 PMB 10018
Broomfield, CO 80023-9306
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