If you’re over the age of about 34, modern job-hunting dictates that you must absolutely, under no circumstances, admit that.

Ever.

Otherwise, the HR algorithm death trap will screen you right out. And yes, you read that right: 34. (You thought 50 was bad? HA.) In today’s tech-heavy job market, we are indeed over the hill at 35.

I find this absolutely repugnant, but that’s real life. Explained Nicole Young in a recent Medium post titled, “Overqualified, Underestimated, and Not Done Yet: The Gen X Career Nightmare,” our age group is: “Too experienced for mid-level. Too niche for senior. Too old to be ‘fresh talent.’ Too young to retire.”

So now we crack our knuckles and play the game, baby. Because with our experience and wisdom, we can beat it—emotionally and strategically.

Not currently looking for a job, but contemplating a mid-life change?

Think you’re not ready to make the plunge?

Skip to Step Two.

Step One: Suit Up

If you’re between the ages of about 34 and 44, maybe you already knew how to wield a good keyword and age dodge. Older and confused, like I was? Here’s what’s in fashion:

• The most obvious one: List your educational degrees without graduation years.

• Going backwards, your chronological resume stops when you get to 2015, as if whatever you were doing around then was your very first job.

• Got some cool bragging rights from jobs you did more than a decade ago? List them under “career highlights” at the end.

• Aaaaand…Include skills. Remember when having a “skills” or (horror) “objective” on the top of your resume was the thing to do? The former is back. Obviously, list all of the software that your industry requires and you know how to use, but wait—there’s more.

• We’ve talked about the importance of stacking jobs, and the skills to get you there matter, too. Make sure to add qualities such as “management, organization and schedule flexibility.” They want to feel confident that you’ll do your work on your own, without the proverbial clipboard girl roaming the cubicles. 

And now it’s time to find a job.

Step Two: Beat the System—Emotionally and Strategically

I’m going to be honest: All of those helpful tips above aside, the jobs I’ve gotten have been through good old-fashioned networking, not the keyword game on FlexJobs, BuiltIn and the others. Have I applied to several contract work gigs a week using the above tips? Yes. Have I followed companies I was interested in on LinkedIn and applied to jobs just so the algorithm knows what I’m into? Yes. This might work. Someday.

But is that hiding behind a keyboard? Almost like the social media trolls who leave nasty comments on posts because they can hide behind their anonymity?

Sending a resume off into the ether is low risk. It’s not embarrassing.

And it means you never have to face rejection.

Fellow mid-life evolvers, it’s time to put yourself out there in a real, meaningful way. Dig deep, be confident. More than one friend has told me that they’re “scared.” Or worse—just complacent enough pre-life change to psych oneself out. But you can make a big leap.

This post on Nick Corcodilos excellent Ask the Headhunter, about a teacher wanting to get into medical device sales, blew my mind.

And got me even more fired up.

I’m now forging my own way. And that’s where being old and greying comes in handy, folks. I used to hate failure. I used to hate asking for what I perceived as “favors.” Gen X women, especially, often find this type of networking daunting—we still remember when there was room for only one of us at the table. There was no female version of the “boys club.” It was every woman out for herself, which stunted our networking/connecting skills.

But it’s a new day.

Plus, we have every reason to be confident. Being older flips the script. They need me. And you.

Wisdom and experience matter, no matter what the algorithms are telling you.

I tell everyone I’m looking for opportunities. I’ve made space in my life for the right ones; I’ve turned down some wrong ones. I’ve not been needy or desperate—at our level, a lot of it is about timing. I’ve sent business ideas to companies I could create something for, and offered my services to online entities that could really use my services.

A reader of this newsletter—whose advice I value tremendously—grew into a job-hunting savant when it was his turn out there, searching company directories for people to directly pitch himself after seeing a job listing he wanted; no “easy apply” with a click for this guy. He would hunt out the C-levels at companies he wanted to work for and create a mini business plan with a QR code to his online presence and snail mail it, snapping a photo first. (Using snail mail?! How’s that for mid-life advantage!) Then he’d follow up in an email and include the photo he took of what he had sent.

“HR algorithms were screening me out,” he told me. “So I decided right there and then to create my own job rather than compete against others. You have to stand out, and no one uses mail anymore!”

He was more methodical than I am, which made me dust off the Excel spreadsheet of companies I wanted to work for but stopped using awhile back. Its date of last use? October 14, 2024. Yikes.

Whatever you do, do it your own way. But do something! You’re worth it.