We know it and repeat it constantly:if the job market is not lenient for anyone, it is especially not so with seniors, who are struggling to find a job after their fifties. It is that in a situation where companies are always more favored and the rights of workers always more disheveled, the first tend to feel all-powerful - with good reason no doubt - while the second must comply with their slightest desires. . To believe that it is a favor to offer a job, and a privilege to sell one's labor power to another one who is enriched thanks to his added value. The world upside down ! The requirements are therefore becoming ever more tyrannical:young people should leave school with the experience of three permanent contracts, while the older ones only have to wait for retirement age at the Pôle Emploi, sometimes in doing odd jobs.
However, the latter do not lack resources that companies would be foolish to do without. Here are a few so as not to miss the rare pearl that would quickly prove to be essential for your structure.
The first and most obvious of the advantages offered by a senior is that of his experience. If they cost more than a young graduate, it's a good thing that they have, in addition to the latter's theoretical knowledge, years or even decades of experience in their field — a know-how that integrates your company at the same time. This means that where a young person will certainly be highly motivated, but perhaps somewhat messy and needy of attention - if not to say unqualified - an older person will not need to be trained, which constitutes a cost in time and resources sometimes not negligible. Yes, your new senior recruit is immediately operational. On the contrary, it is she who will be able to pass on her knowledge to you and to the rest of your staff.
And if she has gone through several companies, which is quite likely for someone nearing the end of her career, it's a safe bet that she will have developed the adaptive skills that will allow her to integrate as quickly in your team, and thus to exploit its potential to the maximum. A senior knows his strengths and weaknesses, and knows how to work with them. Because of their experience, seniors are better equipped in what we call soft skills :they are better able to take a step back from the company, a quality that is not learned at school but rather over a lifetime spent in the world of work and business. As they say, you learn from your mistakes. However, a senior has had time to make them, while a young shoot will have to go through it and make them – at home! - to improve. In short, for all these reasons, an older employee demonstrates high efficiency.
Some also do not hesitate to highlight certain values, which we would find more among seniors than among the new generation, due to a less flexible labor market and a more vertical hierarchy. Seniors would be more comfortable in a hierarchical structure and therefore more respectful of it, but also more loyal, since they are used to keeping the same position for sometimes decades, where it has now become the norm to change it. every few years. At the twilight of their career, they are probably not interested in changing companies in a few years - like a young man with fangs would cut his teeth somewhere before leaving for the competition or elsewhere - and would above all seek stability. There is therefore little risk of seeing them being poached by the competition, provided, however, that they are offered an environment in which they feel good, and a project that they like. Moreover, the children of seniors, if they have any, are grown up and unlikely to represent an obstacle to their hiring, while these employees are no longer at risk of going on maternity or paternity leave — an obviously abusive consideration that unfortunately still has a lot of recruiters.
Depending on the industry, your new senior hire may also have a network that they bring to your structure. With him also comes a certain notoriety that will serve the interests of the company, while his age and experience give him a certain credibility, very useful in your relations with your partners. An effective structure is a balanced structure. If the ardor and dynamism of the youngest represent a considerable asset, it is also once balanced with the experience, stability and credibility of your older elements that they will reveal their full potential and will be able to progress within your company.
The best way to encourage employers to hire seniors is perhaps quite simply to play on… their low instincts and their stinginess! With the increasing share of older people in the population and their poor reputation on the job market, the threat of mass unemployment among this population lurks – and is already somewhat real. , since only 56% of 55-64 year olds were active in 2018 according to a survey by the Department of Research, Studies and Statistics (Dares). This is why the State is offering some aid in order to curb this trend, even if the current situation is proving to be much less incentive than ten years ago. Among them, we can note assistance for any hiring of a worker over the age of 45 under a professionalization contract, which is an employment contract allowing the employee to obtain a professional qualification recognized by the State and/or his professional branch. The recent CDI inclusion is another, complementary to the already existing CDD insertion, and with the stated aim of building a path to retirement for employees aged 57 and over. There are other types of measures which do not only concern seniors but which also apply in their case, such as the single integration contract.
It is therefore not as expensive as it is claimed to hire seniors – in fact, some, frightened at the idea of no longer finding a job in this situation, are also reviewing their salary requirements frankly downwards , in order to align themselves with the competition of the youngest while bringing their own expertise and skills. 75% of them say they are ready to see their requirements lowered. It's not a pretty picture, since it depicts job seekers who are too subservient to the goodwill of companies to claim what is justly due to them, but what is certain is that hiring a senior is for the latter much more beneficial than one tends to affirm.
We can weave generalities in a single file about seniors, young people, men, women, and so on. The fact remains that basically, each employee is unique, and it is not based on statistical data but on the qualities specific to each one that you will know if the person standing in front of you may be the puzzle piece that will best complete your business. So more than age, take an interest in the motivation of the applicant, his adequacy with the project carried out by your company, and the skills he can bring to it. The desire is often present as much in the fifties as at the start of a career, despite the clichés. It would be unfair for seniors to deprive them of a job opportunity, and stupid for your company to do without them, all in the name of a few prejudices who have a hard life.
