Welcome NPR Listeners!

Thank you to Bruce Reznik, the NPR reporter who spent so much time learning about Jobs4.0 in preparation for his report on us today. To his great credit, he not only did the standard interviews, he actually came to our office to read many of the emails we've received from job seekers, spoke to our clients and conducted his own research....pretty impressive. He's a professional who has been in the business for many years, and it shows.
In case you missed the report this AM, it will run again at 7:50 AM, 9:50 AM and in some cities at 11:50 AM EST.

To NPR listeners:

Welcome!

As the report suggests, Jobs4.0 launched just over 4 months ago and we are already partnering with GE, MIT, The Home Depot, Starbucks Coffee Company, UBS, US Surgical, Yale Hospital, and many many more. We work only with prominent employers -no staffing firms or headhunters. Every job posted on our site is sent to us from the company itself, and is the result of a conversation (or three) we've had with them about their commitment to reaching out to job seekers over 40. We spend all day every day talking to employers, trying to find companies that want to judge candidates on their skills and experience, and not on how many birthday candles were on their cake last year.

This process takes time to do it right, without compromising our standards in any way. So if you don't see any relevant postings today, please check back with us soon. We will be adding hundreds of jobs later in the week from additional employers, and every week we welcome new employers into the family of Jobs4.0 companies that are embracing experienced workers.

Please contact us with your comments, suggestions, success stories, employers we should contact, etc. We'd like to hear from you.
Thanks,
Steven

Darien Professionals - Tuesday night

I am looking forward to meeting job seekers in the Fairfield County, Ct area tomorrow night (Tuesday) at the Darien Professionals Networking group, 7:30 PM at the Darien public library. I have heard a number of good things about this particular group, come by if you have a chance and find out what other job seekers over 40 are up to. And I know that meeting you will help Jobs4.0 do its job better...Thanks.
Steven

Walking Through Open Doors

I received a comment today from "Mike" - here it is..
"I am now 40. I started feeling the discrimination when I was in my 30s and a fresh graduate with an M.B.A. I had big dreams for myself at one time. One major issue appears to be employers that are completely enamored with the 20-something crowd which - as we all know - is lacking in overall professional maturity, wisdom and dedication (I recently read about a 24-year-old managing director - what a joke). I sincerely hope that this website opens doors for us and, perhaps, provides us with the motivation and foundation to organize against the wave of age discrimination. Thanks for a great website. Good luck to all. "

To Mike and many more of you who have written expressing a similar sentiment: Thanks for writing. As you suggest, Jobs4.0 is working to open doors, but you and your over 40 colleagues need to be walking through them. For that to happen, job seekers need to check our site regularly and apply to the employers that are posting with us. WHEN APPLYING, PLEASE LET THEM KNOW YOU ARE DOING SO IN RESPONSE TO JOBS4.0 POSTINGS! These companies WANT to see your resume, yet I suspect some job seekers are mistakenly avoiding mentioning our site for fear of HR managers discriminating against them! Bad idea. Attempting to mislead HR people about your age isn't going to lead to job offers. First of all, there is no way to hide your age on a resume - none. Omitting dates and jobs is a transparent and poor response to a difficult situation. Instead, find employers that embrace experienced workers, and then carefully draft a strong resume. And please tell them you saw their postings on Jobs4.0, they will thank you for it!
An ever growing number of prominent employers are posting jobs with us - doors are starting to open, and you need to walk through them, not walk around the block and try to get in through a different entrance!

I'll be a columnist for Forbes.com beginning the first week of February and my first column will cover this in detail. Stay tuned....

Thanks,
Steven

Monday morning with Ray & Diane.. & Jodi too

I had a good time this morning on WTIC, the CBS radio affiliate in Hartford, CT. Thanks to "Ray and Diane" for having us on during the morning commute, and helping spread the word. They have posted a link to the interview on their home page, go to www.wtic.com .

While I was waiting to go on I did some quick research on CT's governor Jodi Rell. She's an interesting story - she didn't run for office til later than most politicians and at 45 she was still a very obscure state representative. Even as Lt Governor she was little known (who is CT's Lt governor now?), but when Governor Rowland went down in disgrace, she was suddenly CT's governor.

But what do you know, as governor her approval ratings have reached record highs, and in the most recent election she received more votes than any governor in the history of CT! The point is, at 45 her resume was like many other mid-career person's. Most HR people would have tossed her resume aside, they wouldn't have given her an interview to be a store manager at JC Penney, let alone one for governor. If she worked at a large pharmaceutical company they'd probably be slashing her job along with thousands of other older workers. But look - at 45 and even at 50 her best, most productive years were still ahead of her!
For Jodi Rell it was a bit of luck, and then the people of CT, that gave her a chance to shine in her 50's and beyond. Employers everywhere need to realize what the people of CT already seem to know - people need to be judged on their skills, not the number of candles on their birthday cake.

Steven

Corporate Layoffs - Who Gets Cut?

A TV reporter called me yesterday, she wanted to know if I had any statistics on how corporate downsizing impacts job seekers over 40. While there is certainly reason to suspect that older workers bear the brunt of mass layoffs, I have not been able to uncover any hard stats on this. Calls to various labor departments have gone unanswered, and so far our own research has turned up little hard data as well. Has anyone seen any stas on this?

It is an extremely relevant issue - yesterday's NY Times reported that Motorola plans to cut 5% of its workforce in the first half of this year. I wonder how many of the 3,500 people losing their jobs will be over 40?

CNNMoney reports that Pfizer is also expected to cut 10% of its work force this year, on top of the 20% in layoffs it recently made to its US sales force.
Sure, workers over 40 are likely to be earning more than younger workers, and maybe that is the pretense for slashing those jobs. But are they given the opportunity to take a pay reduction to stay in their job, or are the layoffs just a convenient way to target older workers? And if the idea is to target the high salaries, how come the layoffs never seem to include the CEO or the other chief officers of the company?
I wonder... and I wonder if the government even keeps statistics on this... sure would be nice if a state or federal labor department would return my calls...
Steven

Pfizer article :
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200701191755DOWJONESDJONLINE000985_FORTUNE5.html">

Motorola: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/technology/20moto.html">

Four Month Update

After 4 months we are certainly seeing some trends: although there are some companies that clearly understand ageism and want to reach out to older workers, all in all there is lots of work to be done to educate employers. To their credit, a wide range of employers have listened to us with an open mind, and we've made great progress with them. Jobs4.0 now has thousands and thousands of job postings in many parts of the U.S. All from companies that want to see resumes from job seekers over 40!! At the same time, there is a substantial percentage of companies that seem 'aggressively disinterested' in reaching out to job seekers over 40. (We are saving names, and emails received, and we'll be watching them....)

Here's what you can do...reach out to the employers that post on the site. Even if you don't see a job that is a perfect match, it is worthwhile to send your resume and a note saying you know they are open to hiring older workers, and can they forsee any job openings which might be a good fit for you? Also, please send our site around to your over 40 colleagues - if companies don't see enough responses from postings on our site, they'll be no need for them to think they need to reach out to job seekers over 40!!!!

We'll keep pounding; every day we are making progress... we add new jobs and new employers almost every single day... please keep checking the site and tell companies you saw their postings on Jobs4.0.
Thanks.
Steven

PS. Please let us know how Jobs4.0 companies have responded to your applications. Are you getting job offers? interviews? thanks.

Steven, pick up line 2, Bias on the phone

Had an interesting call this morning...an employment consulting company called - they advise some large employers on where to place ads for their open jobs... they wanted to recommend us to only one of their clients that is an old-time company... what about other clients I asked? She said, 'well, Jobs4.0 fills a very specific niche, a very narrow niche'. Yikes! I wanted to know what niche might that be?? Which employers in her mind should not even considering hiring job seekers over 40??? She wasn't GM of the Yankees, nor was she recruitng for Miss Teen USA.... so I asked her, why are you assuming that reaching out to job seekers over 40 is not in your clients best interests????

Her apparent bias against older workers wasn't shocking, but it was certainly a loud reminder that we have a long way to go to educate employers about the strength of the 40+ labor pool and the many benefits that any employer can reap from hiring them ... job seekers over 40 should not be thought of as retired workers that are good merely to sell tickets at a movie theater! We ended up having a decent conversation, but we'll see what happens........Did we open that door or not, I can't say.. Gotta go, many more doors to pound on this morning...

steven

PS. Keep the emails coming about your experiences, we find them very useful.. thanks.

MLK Day

Happy MLK Day.....Amazing to think that Dr. King never reached 40; he was assassinated at just 39 years of age... he would have been 78 today.

Welcome NY Times readers!

Welcome NY Times readers......good to see the paper of record has taken notice of us already, just 4 months into it.

A quick overview of Jobs4.0:

1. Jobs4.0 is the only site that is actively working to find job opportunities for people over 40 years of age. We know that ageism often starts at 40, and we understand the deep frustration that so many over 40 workers feel when their skills and talent are rejected because of their birthdate. We founded the site in order to open doors for job seekers over 40 at prominent employers.

2. There are many many sites focusing on retirees and seniors, some of them were discussed in the Times. Those are fine, but the point of Jobs4.0 is that we are the "anti-retirement job site". We want to erase the perception that workers over 40 are seniors looking to limp into retirement; to the contrary, employers such as GE, Starbucks, UBS, US Surgical, Save the Children, Marriott and so many more have chosen to partner with Jobs4.0 because they understand that this group is skilled, energetic, focused and capable of adding value to their respective company for 10 or 20 or more years....Unlike the other sites mentioned, Jobs4.0 is about Gray Matter, not Gray Hair!

3. We post positions from prominent employers only. We are the only site that will not accept job postings from staffing firms or employment agencies. Agencies are too unaccountable, the jobs are too often undefined. You will not find any sketchy jobs here; only good, solid positions at established companies that have represented to us that they will evaluate job seekers over 40 on their ability.

4. Our strict guidelines for posting jobs means that the process of finding jobs in every category and location in the US takes some time. We are adding jobs every day, but we won't compromise our standards just to put a job on our site. So if you don't see a good match yet, please check back with us regularly (bookmark our site!). We are working hard to make it happen. We are close, for example, with two large national employers to add jobs this coming week. Stay tuned.....


5. Please send us your feedback, comments, suggestions. We gets lots of mail, and your stories and input are invaluable to us. Thanks!


Welcome to our site, and please don't forget to tell the employers on our site that you saw the posting on Jobs4.0.

Steven

Hello Columbus!

Had a fun time this morning talking to the 'legendary' Bob Connors, radio host of the leading morning show on WTVN in Columbus Ohio. Thanks for the invitation Bob.. We also were interviewed by the leading newspaper there, The Columbus Dispatch, a few weeks ago. Lots of press coverage, but we can't seem to get many jobs posted there.... but we're working on it, in Columbus and everywhere else.
www.wtvn.com



Had two great conference calls with national retail stores today. Both should be signing up with Jobs4.0 soon. I'll should have details, and the job postings, by next week. These national companies should be posting good jobs all across US, even in Columbus.

Thanks to all who have submitted comments in the past few days.
Steven

The latest from the Donald.... Trump Discrimination?

I was talking to a radio reporter this morning about Jobs4.0 and how ageism is impacting job seekers over 40 all over the US, to varying degrees. He wanted to know how come there weren't more age discrimination cases filed by frustrated job seekers.
Even to the extent cases are filed they tend to be age discrimination in the firing of an older employee and not the failure to hire a new employee. Of course the main reason is that it is so hard to prove. Many older job seekers never even get a response to their resumes, perhaps because of a fear of a lawsuit (if you've never actually been formally rejected, how can you sue?). On the other hand, the practice is so widespread that it'd be hard to sue thousands of companies on a 'conspiracy of silence' claim! Either way older job seekers have an expensive and difficult road if they choose litigation.

By coincidence I received this story today - someone is choosing to walk that road; a 49 year old is suing Donald Trump because he was deemed too old to be on The Apprentice. (They hire only younger people? what a shock!) With all the young faces all over TV, this case will be interesting to watch.

At least now I know why The Apprentice hasn't posted any jobs on our site.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20007211,00.html

Media Coverage

We have a number of requests from various media people to speak with job seekers who use Jobs4.0. They want to talk to people who have gotten interviews or jobs as a result of using Jobs4.0. We have a list of such people, but we'd like to have as many as possible from various locations around the US. Please contact us if you've gotten interviews or a job offer from a job posting you found on our site, thanks!
Steven

Online job applications

I see more and more employers who are moving to an automated Q and A application process at the time you submit your resume online. There was recently a big article about Google's new system for screening candidates (for jobs at Google), and many other large companies have some form of an automated system as well. I am looking for feedback from job seekers who have gone through the process and can shed some light on the impact this will have on job seekers over 40 -- do any of the questions look like they are designed to reveal your age? Obviously it would need to be subtle, but is it there? Is there a sense that these automated systems are leading to more or less interviews for job seekers over 40? I'd really like to hear comments about this, so we can highlight for people what is really going on out there...

On a completely different note, we are getting more and more requests from staffing firms to post positions on our site; they don't quite get it yet -- Jobs4.0 posts jobs from actual employers only. We have seen way too many cases of older workers applying for one position at a staffing firm only to get called for a temp job for 3 hours on a Sunday....our candidates want real jobs at good companies that value over 40 workers. We received a great deal of new jobs yesterday from several companies around the US, and our momentum is definitely building. But it takes time to do this the right way, without the "work at home" schemes and all the other nonsense that populates some other job boards. We are making incredible progress. Thanks for your support. it is all very exciting... Lots more media events on the way, stay tuned.....
have a good weekend.

New Employers Partnering with Jobs4.0

We spend most of our days and nights (when we are not dealing with our tech dept)talking to employers all over the US -- lots and lots of them. There are many outstanding developments. Here's two of them: We are very happy to welcome GE and Starbucks Coffee Company to our site, as our most recent employers to join the family of employers that embrace job seekers over 40! They join Yale Hospital, MIT, UBS, the national law firm of Greenberg, Traurig (no relation, though I am a lawyer), and many more.

It's great that GE and UBS and Starbucks are with us now, but we know we still have lots of locations and categories that do not have enough (or any) job postings at this point. The good news is that we have A LOT of great discussions going on with major employers all over the US, and we'll see a steady stream of good, quality jobs come on to the site in the coming days, weeks and months. Please mark our site as a Favorite, and check back with us regularly. With your support we can continue to get the attention of prominent employers. Without it we won't make progress! But we are moving ahead with some great companies who will be posting jobs that you will be happy to see. I promise! We are growing every day, please be patient and stick with us! Thanks!!

Steven

PS. (I love using PS, in case you haven't noticed)
We could fill our site with jobs today if we really wanted to, but we don't want to post hundreds of "work at home" jobs or other sketchy jobs. We just won't do that. That is not what Jobs4.0 is about. We reject jobs all the time from staffing firms, temp agencies and so forth. As agents, they are too unaccountable, it's too easy for over 40 job seekers to be ignored. Every job on our site is a good job, from a respected employer, who wants to evaluate your skills and not how many birthdays you have had. It takes time to gather jobs like that in all categories around the US, but in the end it will be of far greater value to job seekers over 40. Thanks!!

Oops..... looks like we were ready for Forbes.com and MSNBC.com, but Yahoo put us over the edge!! Sorry we were offline for a few hours today. We have made some changes (hopefully they are improvements, we sure think they are), and that should not happen again. Thanks for your patience and your persistence.

The good news is that Jobs4.0 is gaining traction around the US. We are continuing to build strength among job seekers over 40, and as a result more and more companies are noticing! (more on that tomorrow AM)

Job seekers over 40 are not alone anymore -- we are getting a great deal of emails from people who are sharing their stories of age discrimination, starting as young as 41! We'll be sharing some of the stories, as soon as I recover from today's events. Thanks again for your support......stick with us!

Steven

PS. And feel free to chime in on the blog, we'd love to hear from you