Dick Gaither

Thursday, May 20,  2010, 10 am Pacific, 11 pm Mt, 12 pm Central, 1 pm EST, 2 pm Atlantic, 7 pm Zurich, 8 pm Istanbul

Overcoming The 12 Myths of Maturity:  35 Ways To Counter Age Bias And Answering Over-Qualification Questions

Yes!  There is age discrimination in the labor market and it can negatively impact your employment options…if you let it.  As with other types of employment discrimination, age discrimination stems from two factors: employer ignorance and the applicant’s inability to understand, address, and counter the myths that permeate the labor market about older workers.  In this tele-interview Dick Gaither, America’s Wizard of Work, will explain how to turn that gray hair into an asset instead of a liability and answer questions about over-qualifications.

Dick is providing two .pdf training files and two sets of PowerPoint presentations for you to download and use…royalty free.

• Myths of Maturity.pdf (training handout)
• Myths of Maturity.ppt

Exercise:  How To Build Answers on Over-Qualification

Download Over-qualifications handout and do exercise at end of handout.

• Over-qualifications.pdf (training handout)

  Contact Info

Dick Gaither

Job Search Training System, Inc.

941 Constellation Way

Franklin, IN 46131

800 361-1613

www.wizardsofwork.com

e-mail: workwizard@aol.com 

Dick’s greatest strength is his innate ability to connect with every type of audience.  If you want to excite, energize, and motivate your staff or clients, bring Dick in as a guest speaker, keynote presenter, or a staff, student, or client job search instructor.

• Many, many, many of the folks have come in since your sessions and told us you are, by far, the best speaker we have had. Kim Stewart, HR, Mahle Industries.

• I consider Gaither the top career coach and most knowledgeable person about job search strategies in the country. Dick Deems, Make Job Loss Work For You

• Dick can teach you more about finding work in an hour than most people can in an entire program. J. M. Farr, Job Finding Fast

• Dick Gaither is one of the country’s most riveting job search instructors that I’ve ever seen. Richard Bolles, What Color Is Your Parachute?

If you want to order any of the books below,  drop me an e-mail, workwizard@aol.com, because I’m probably riding the Harley and not answering the phone!

Bio

Dick Gaither is the straight talking, hard hitting president of Job Search Training Systems, Inc., an original founder of JIST Works, Inc., one of the creators of Job Clubs and Self-Directed Job Search models...and proud to say a Vietnam Veteran.

Over the past 20 years, Dick's peers have dubbed him the "Wizard of Work." Dick is one of most dynamic, entertaining, informative and sought after job search instructors in the country. Dick Bolles (author of What Color Is Your Parachute) says Dick Gaither is one of the "most riveting" trainers he's ever seen.

Dick’s a nationally recognized employment professional, best selling author (over 2,000,000 units in print) and an award-winning trainer. Dick’s helped develop some of the country’s most successful job search programs and training materials. Over 70,000 job seekers, career changers, teachers, career development & employment professionals have attended his training sessions.

Dick works with every type of job seeking population...and the staff that help them find work, including welfare clientele, offenders, rehabilitation (mental/physical) clients, dislocated workers (blue & white collar), students (high school, community college, university), native American’s & First Nation Aboriginals, veterans, inner-city disadvantaged youth & drop outs, and drug & alcohol dependent clients.

Opening Instructions for Listeners

Before we begin, here are a few instructions for listeners:

Interview Questions

1. In your Myths of Maturity powerpoint, you say that although we've all got to get old, "We don't have to get mature!"  What do you mean by that? Your statement counters everything other career professionals have been saying about career maturity since 1955.  Researchers have said that all of the following factors are integral to career maturity: career decision-making, career commitment, career aspiration, work ethics and leisure, career exploration and occupational information-seeking.  Why do you say we don't have to get mature?
2. Would you describe yourself as "mature"?  Why?
3. Several older workers that I knew when I was working full-time,  were scared of losing their job, their retirement benefits, and security.  Two were greatly over weight - one developed stomach cancer and the other had a heart attack. They ended up literally dying in their workplace.   The first was a career counselor and only in her early fifties. What would you suggest as an alternative to dying on the job?
4. What can older workers who are applying for jobs do when they forget something they should know, when their mind goes blank?  On the resume and application, they can retrieve the information, but in an interview, what can they do?
5. How do you negotiate for higher pay when you're afraid that the employer will think you are over-qualified?  That would only prove his point!
6. What if your long-term career objective is to work for five years so you can get retirement benefits and then retire? How can you persuade the prospective employer you have a future focus when you just want to save enough so you can retire in peace?
7. In your Myths of Maturity, you say that it's a myth that older workers have difficulty with younger workers and team building.  You counter that most older workers have lived through Demming's management model of using self-directed work teams.  Could you explain that model?
8. Let's move to the "Overqualifications Issue." You say that there is no such thing as overqualified." What if you want to do something less stressful and simpler than your past positions, i.e. manage a small senior group housing development rather than manage a high-powered corporate office? How can you persuade the prospective employer that you are not over-qualified? (5 steps to Preemptive Approach)
9. What are Interviewers looking for when they interview someone they think is overqualified?
10. What are the keys to addressing overqualification issues?
11. What if you really would like the job of the person who is interviewing you and you think you could do a better job than that person?
12. How do you counteract some of the employer's fears associated with over-qualified applicants, such as the following (I'm being the employer who is interviewing you now - what would you say)?: " If I hire you, will you feel like your skills and education are being underutilized?"  "Will you feel like your'e being underpaid?"  "Will you be a know-it-all?" (Reactionary Approach - 5 steps to a good answer)
13. How do you answer an employer who is concerned you got your degree too long ago or worked in this job capacity too long ago?
14. How would you answer the question, "Will you be able to be supervised by someone with less experience in the field than you have?
15. What if you have a feeling that the employer is worried about your overqualifications? How do you alleviate his fears if he doesn't say anything directly to you?
16. In your powerpoint and training files posted on your Careerwell Web Page, you talk about getting a job and what older workers can disprove to prospective employers.  What myths can older entrepreneurs disprove to prospective clients and how can they disprove these myths?
17. Have you ever confronted over-qualification issues or age bias in your career?  What did you do that worked for you?

Closing

Thank you Dick, Richard Bolles was correct when he said you are a riviting speaker.