But I guarantee you have never considered the hidden market avenues I'm about to share. The majority of career writers obsess over the fact that the published market-want ads posted by companies and employment agencies-is an unproductive route to take because you have fighting a numbers game. Career heavies advise job searchers to be creative, yet fail to point out actual hidden market opportunities. Finding them is like striking gold. First you discover a deposit with a hint of gold that, when traced, leads to a big find. It's the same way with the hidden market. Once you stumble on one lead, others follow.
LOCAL AND NATIONAL JOB-FINDING ORGANIZATIONS
Just as you searched the Yellow Pages for potential networking organizations, so you should use them to locate organizations in the job-finding business. Plenty exist to serve different markets. Here are three to consider.
National Executive Service Corps (NESC); Senior Career Planning and Placement Service (SCPPS): NESC offers management consulting services to nonprofit organizations operating in 41 cities. SCPPS is its placement service for downsized and retired executives who are looking for second careers. Operating like an inexpensive executive recruiting firm, it charges applicants a $500 fee and 20 percent of their first year's salary. Based in New York, SCPPS services nonprofit organizations throughout the country. Companies with short-term projects are finding that it makes more sense to hire a seasoned executive than untested part-time help or an expensive independent consultant.
Operation ABLE (Ability Based on Long Experience): A nonprofit organization, ABLE helps older job searchers find full-time, part-time, and temporary jobs. ABLE also provides career counseling, testing, and assessment services that often lead to training or retraining for job seekers. The government, foundations, and individual contributors pay for ABLE's programs. Services are free to job searchers. The original ABLE operation began in Chicago and was the model for nine others nationwide. They are:
- Rainier Job Service Center/Experience Plus, Chicago
- Older Workers Employment Council, Denver Metropolitan Area
- Operation ABLE of Southeast Nebraska
- Operation ABLE of Michigan
- Vermont Associates for Training and Development, Inc.
- Operation ABLE of Greater Boston
- ABLE Senior Employment Services, New York
- Atlanta Regional Commission
- Arkansas ABLE
- Career Encore, Los Angeles
Two years ago, for example, AARP launched the Job Hub in New York City, a unique service providing local businesses with a talent pool of workers from assorted backgrounds, including secretaries, computer operators, word processors, clerks, receptionists, office service personnel, accountants, salespeople, managers, entrepreneurs, and professionals from many fields. Applicants are prescreened by AARP volunteers and come from area universities and city agencies that include Aging in America, YWCA (New York City), Department for the Aging, and New York Foundation for Senior Citizens.
It pays to be part of such a labor pool. A local employer may be looking for your special talents. Over the next couple of years. Job Hubs will be starting up in other cities.
GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED PROGRAMS
If you've got no patience for bureaucracy and all the inescapable red tape, procedures, and annoying paperwork that accompany it, you'll have problems dealing with government agencies. That's a fact of life that'll never change. Nevertheless, government agencies at both federal and state levels offer several services for older job searchers.
In fact, additional programs will be kicking off over the next few years. So take a deep breath and get ready to experience mega-doses of frustration. It's worth it for a pearl of a job lead.
At the federal level, programs are sponsored by the Division of Older Worker Programs (U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration). Started in 1965 under Title 5 of the Older Americans Act, the program administers grants to 10 national nonprofit organizations and state agencies, as determined by Congress. The American Association of Retired People (AARP), for example, is a grantee. A program specialist can tell you about the grantees near you. Once you pass the eligibility requirements, inter views, and physical examination, you're placed in a community service organization (hospital, nursing home, public school, YMCA).
Approximately 20 percent of the enrollees move into profit-making or government organizations. More than 30,000 people go through the program every year. The best part is it costs nothing. Regionally, each state sponsors its own programs. Call your state s department of labor to find out what programs it offers for older workers. New York, for example, operates the Worker Opportunity and Reemployment Center, offering training opportunities, tuition assistance, a placement service, and fax machines and computers for job hunters to develop their own materials. Even though it's available to all workers over 18, more than 25 percent of applicants are over 55.
