Technology and Baby Boomers: Exploring a Misconception

After running through our program demo with prospective clients, we often hear, “I think this will be great for my newer employees, but I don’t think my more tenured folks would prefer virtual outplacement.” Respectfully, we always disagree with that supposition.

Believe it or not, social media-slick Baby Boomers (hi, mom!) are the fastest growing segment of smartphone buyers, and are more likely than Gen Xers to use apps to monitor their health.

They shop online, bank online, and—even look for jobs online. And if you are looking for a job today, at any age, you must use digital tools to navigate the job search landscape, especially by maintaining an updated profile on LinkedIn, where 95% of recruiters look for talent.

From our experience, longer tenured workers welcome the opportunity to work on their job search from home, instead of commuting back into the office, spending money on gas and parking, just to meet with their career coach for a couple hours. And Ture's outplacement program participants often inquire about how to look for a job where they can work from home. In fact, 97% of HR pros said that they offered flexible work arrangements to attract and retain older workers.

We certainly understand why companies may make this assumption about some of their long tenured workers. This employee group may not have looked for a job in over 20 years, and the entire search process has completely changed since the last time they wrote a resume. This is why it is so important to provide job seekers with unlimited coaching until placement, as well as a virtual program to help them hone their online skills.

Enabling participants to work one-on-one with their coach until they land ensures they get the level of coaching they need during what is usually an unplanned job search. We have not only helped people set up their first personal email address, but also have had participants dictate their resume over the phone to their dedicated coach who typed it up, and screen shared the next steps to walk them through the process of submitting to the participant’s resume writer.

Our hands-on people-plus-technology process builds important and necessary skills. For those less tech-savvy folks who come to us needing to start from scratch, after going through our outplacement program they head off to their new gig glowing with the recently acquired knowledge of navigating the internet. They have not only landed a position, but have learned a new must-have workplace skill: internet and technological literacy.

So when this objection comes up during a conversation about our program, I excitedly share that Ture couldn’t be a better option for their tenured employees.