Amy Lindgren
Second Sunday Series — This is the sixth of 12 columns on career planning post-60, which will appear the second Sunday of each month from September through August.
So far in this series on career planning for the post-60 years, we’ve mostly focused on big-picture issues such as marketplace changes, Social Security, demographics and so on. But the perspective shifted in the last installment to more personal topics, such as how many years you might expect to live.
That’s personal, alright. Life expectancy is a topic many folks shy away from, even in their own families. But it’s a core part of the career planning process for workers in their elder years. After all, your choices will differ for time spans of five years as opposed to 25 years. Whichever it is for you (and of course, no one knows for sure), now it’s time to think about the work you’d like to fill those years with.
We’ll break this into three chunks. First, some strategies, then steps for career discernment, then some extra considerations.
Strategies for post-60 work
• Stay with your current employer. Sometimes the best path is also the easiest. If your current work feels sustainable and you like your employer enough to stay, then you’re all set. Familiarity and continuity are definitely advantages to this plan, as is the flexibility you might expect if you want to change duties or reduce your hours. One down side: Putting all your career eggs into an employer’s basket means you might have to scramble if anything happens to the company.
• Stay in your current field but in a different form. In this scenario, you would continue in the same general career path but you’d do the work differently. Think about accountants becoming business consultants or welders teaching at tech colleges. Advantages to this plan include the opportunity to use your expertise while cherry-picking the parts of your work you like best. Depending on the depth of the transition you make, you might need new training, as well as new contacts to help you get started.
• Switch to something entirely new. Going from the office to outdoors, or from corporate management to being an individual contributor in a small company are well-trod paths for people at this life stage. And then there are the “fun” options, although that’s a personal definition that could range from being a tour guide to managing a craft store to coaching sales teams. One clear advantage of making a full career transition is the opportunity to begin an entirely new path. One down side is the risk of making a radical switch without enough information, leading to lost investments in training or time.
Steps for choosing a career
This is a grand simplification, but any of these steps could be part or all of the process for choosing or confirming the career you might want in your later years. Initially you only need a few ideas and they don’t have to be perfect. Research and informational interviewing will help you shape them into viable options.
• Take a vocational assessment, online or with the help of a career counselor.
• Review your skills and aptitudes to determine your best or favorites; then identify careers that use them.
• Ask friends and colleagues which jobs they think would fit you.
• Review online resources and books that present career information.
• Review your favorite past jobs (all the way back to high school) for those you might enjoy now.
• Take a course or attend sessions guided by a career counselor.
Other considerations for post-60 careers
• Choose work you can age into. As people transition through their 60s, 70s and 80s, they are likely to experience changes in health, stamina, cognition or mobility. They may also be caretakers for parents, partners or grandchildren. In addition, both finances and personal interests might evolve. Any of these circumstances could impact your work, so career choices that can flex with changing conditions will be especially appropriate.
As an example, nurses can switch from physically demanding hospital roles to outpatient clinics or home-based insurance review. Teachers might go from classrooms to online tutoring, while trades people could transition from hands-on work to conducting inspections or bidding jobs.
• Factor in self-employment. If you’re independent now, taking a job with consistent pay could help you catch up financially while relieving the daily stress of running a business. On the other hand, this might be the perfect time to switch from employment to entrepreneurship, to provide the flexibility and creativity you’ve been craving.
• Don’t fear retraining. This may seem risky, but if you gain new qualifications in your 60s and use them for a decade, that’s a decent return on time invested. Is it also a good use of your money? That’s harder to calculate but you do have this advantage over your younger self: At this stage, you know how most of the story turns out. Now, instead of saving for your later years, you can go ahead and live them.
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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.
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