Speaker Bio
I have worked in marketing for many leading global brands for more than 30 years. I recently started teaching marketing at two different universities and was stunned to learn that my bright talented students didn’t have a clue about how to find a job when they graduated. I wrote my first book, BRAND YOU! To Land Your Dream Job, to teach them how to use the marketing skills I teach in class to market their most important product – themselves. Then I brought out a couple of other shorter, single-topic career development books, focusing on social media, resume writing, and mastering LinkedIn.
But then something amazing happened. I was contacted by many of my professional friends and peers, competent talented professionals I knew and trusted and held in high regard. And they were asking for my help. Through them, I discovered that there is a legion of outstanding professionals who have been discarded by corporate America for one reason alone – their age. Somehow, rather than being America’s affluent darlings, we have become The Unemployable Generation.
I was stunned because this could be me. In fact, I realized that I was vulnerable to the exact same unfair discrimination. After all, I just turned 67 – that’s past traditional retirement age. No one is going to hire a 67-year old marketing head – that’s a job for the 28-year-old whiz kids today. I was one of those fast-track over-achievers way back then too. And I certainly wasn’t ready to “retire” and lose my status as a valuable contributing professional. But when you can’t find a job in your career field, when you can’t be gainfully employed doing what you know and love, what can you do?
I was stunned because this could be me. In fact, I realized that I was vulnerable to the exact same unfair discrimination. After all, I just turned 67 – that’s past traditional retirement age. No one is going to hire a 67-year old marketing head – that’s a job for the 28-year-old whiz kids today. I was one of those fast-track over-achievers way back then too. And I certainly wasn’t ready to “retire” and lose my status as a valuable contributing professional. But when you can’t find a job in your career field, when you can’t be gainfully employed doing what you know and love, what can you do?
So to help my friends, I started studying and researching and trying to understand the dynamics of this job displacement phenomenon. As a result, I wrote my most recent book REINVENT YOUR CAREER – Beat Age Discrimination to Land Your Dream Job to help mature professionals everywhere, imagine and create a vision of the future as encompassing meaningful, well-compensated, important work that they can enjoy and contribute to for as long as they wish to remain productive and active. Because if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life!
