Experience on Tap! by Karen Ryan, Director Temporary and Contract Recruitment
At Moir Group we see great value in experience. Even internally, we have many mature, experienced people working across all areas of our business. Our team all work well together, we add value to each other no matter what their age or the stage of their careers and we all learn from each other. This is one of our secrets to success.
Recently we have placed a candidate who offered a wealth of experience in activity based costing, project and change management, stakeholder engagement and who was a qualified and highly experienced finance professional. He was easy to help because he was flexible on location, rate and the length of contract and came with excellent references. He was also extremely grateful for the opportunity to work and he promised to deliver and add value to the client. His attitude was extremely positive and he offered many years of experience. He will be highly successful in helping our client understand the changes needed in their organisation and then he will easily gain their respect internally and externally to implement these changes. We didn’t ask his age or even know it until we had to do a police check as part to the client’s HR policy and only then we discovered that our candidate was 72. He has the attitude and passion and energy and experience to perform and deliver and that is all that matters to our client and us.
Our candidates come in all ages and stages!
It is easy to say, we rate and support and find excellent roles for our candidates who are first movers or newly qualified. Our Emerging Leaders who have commercial and chartered experience are also easy to place in permanent and contract roles. We support and help candidates to secure roles with excellent organisations.
But what about those who are at the next stage of their careers? Or those who have been made redundant or moved states or countries later in their working lives? They are likely over 50 years old and because of this, they have a world of experience to offer our clients.
Candidates who are immediately available, mature in their approach and attitude and who offer broad and varied industry and technical experience, are highly valued by our contracting team and our clients.
Another candidate we placed in a highly specialised Procure to Pay Project was in her late 60’s. Again we only knew her age when the client needed a date of birth for internal system log on. They actually thought we had made a typo! Her references were strong and showed someone with a no-nonsense approach who gets on with people in a direct and effective way and gets results. There is no time wasted on Facebook, chatting, or on office gossip. She simply does a good job, with a strong work ethic and years of experience in the area our client needed.
There are roles which can benefit from experience offered by our more senior Financial Controllers, Chief Financial Officers and Finance Directors. Recently we placed someone in their late 50’s to take on a role as a Shared Services Director and run a team of 200 people across the AsiaPac Region. Nothing phased him as he had done this before with large, complex organisations and he is now delighted to have the opportunity to again shine in his field of expertise.
To the person doing the hiring:
You are well aware the population in Australia is ageing. Retirement age has been stagged to increase to 67 by 2023. There are talented people available that you can tap into. By not noticing or using these skills, your company is missing out on valuable resources. Everyone reading this, will be part of this pool of candidates either now or in the future. I hate to be the one to point it out, but if you aren’t already, you too will be in the over 40 age bracket at some stage. Chances are when you are in your 50’s, you may find yourself out of work yet still willing and able to contribute. So hiring managers of today, HR professionals and recruiters, you need to be open to this source of candidate because one day soon, it could be you who are offering your experience to the market.
The Aging Workforce is you and me:
I don't know if it is my own age bracket that has lifted my scotoma, or the world is just talking about this more, but everywhere I turn lately I am seeing reference to the aging workforce. In the the SMH Good Weekend recently there were stories of 70 and 80 years still dancing, running business and completing marathons! Ellen DeGeneres was on social media recently tweeting about "over the hill" being a great thing as it means you have to climb really hard mountain and now you are over the hard part and have the rest to look forward to. Also stories about people who started great things when they were well into their 40's, 50's and 60's and that age shouldn't stop anyone and is just a number. Some examples include Colonel Saunders who was 62 when he started KFC; Wilder, who wrote Little House on the Praire didn't publish her first novel until she was 65; Ray Kroc was a milk shake device sales man until he bought McDonalds when he was 52 in 1954 and then we have Stan Lee who created the Fantastic Four comic book title just short of his 40th birthday - the list goes on!
Politicians, judges, scientist and professors; they often do their best work in their senior years. Think of Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein and even Barack Obama born in 1961, and then there is Charles Darwin who was in his 50’s when his “Origin of Species” work changed science forever back in 1859! Think of famous musicians who never stop, Pavarotti and Tom Jones just to name two!
So the message here is, human beings have a basic need to feel needed and be valued. If they are sharp, motivated and have years of experience from all types of organisations to share, why not hire them? Interim roles especially need people to hit the ground running, to be self managed and to work well with many people, so why not hire someone who has many years of technical experience and people management skills to draw on. You, the hiring manager, can get on with your job and know the candidate is sorting out the project you have assigned to them with minimal fuss and maximum output. It’s not about how old the mind is. It’s about the mindset!
And really, if you are good at something, and enjoy it, why stop?
