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50 best companies for employees over 50

This year, the AARP’s list gives special preference to companies that offer flexible hours. Plus, job sites for people who want to keep working through ‘retirement.’

The AARP’s latest list of the top places to work for people over 50 includes some household names, like Volkswagen of America (#6), drug maker Hoffmann-LaRoche (#10), L.L. Bean (#43), and John Deere (Charts) (#50).

As in previous years, however, by far the largest group of companies on the list are privately owned health-care providers, like No. 1-ranked Mercy Health System, headquartered in Janesville, Wis.

What they all have in common: They offer flexible work hours to an increasing number of their employees.

Volkswagen, based in Auburn Hills, Mich., is typical. The company makes flextime, compressed work schedules, job sharing, and telecommuting available to both full- and part-time workers, as well as letting some of its employees ease into retirement gradually by working part time first. After they do step aside, many of Volkswagen’s retirees are offered consulting projects, temporary assignments, and part-time jobs.

Nonprofits like winner Mercy Health System, which runs 63 health-care facilities in Wisconsin and Illinois, offer other flexible-scheduling opportunities, like weekend-only work and on-call assignments involving a limited number of hours per month.

A recent study by the AARP and human-resources consultants Towers Perrin says that employees age 50 and over will account for 20% of the workforce by the year 2012, up from 13% now.

As a result, says smart employers are trying to create a “mutually beneficial work environment” for older workers, says AARP chief executive Bill Novelli. “Flexible arrangements can be a big part of that.”

The full list of this year’s honorees are below.
Web sites for older workers

Unfortunately, most of the employers on this year’s list are limited to relatively small geographic areas. What if you’re an over-50 job seeker who doesn’t happen to live near any of them? Not a minute too soon, nationwide job sites for the older and wiser are beginning to appear on the Web.
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How To Get Fired Like A Man

Forced out of her Hewlett-Packard CEO role, Carly Fiorina, America’s most powerful businesswoman walked away with a severance package totaling more than $21 million, plus millions more in stock options, salary and bonuses. She’s not the only savvy female business leader packing a golden parachute. Edna Morris negotiated a rich bounty before taking the helm as president of America’s largest seafood restaurant chain, Red Lobster. After the Orlando, Florida-based company hit rough seas, she was forced to abandon ship. While other women might have lost their bearings, Morris, now executive director of the James Beard Foundation, tells PINK magazine her financial package allowed her to float for months while she considered her next move.

“You owe it to yourself to negotiate an appropriate package,” says Morris. “It enables you to move forward to find exciting possibilities where you can make the difference you want to make in the world.”

But, sadly, when many female executives leave their posts, they walk away without packages. Their male counterparts, however, more often fly out the door with golden parachutes. When men leave due to a merger or bankruptcy, or even are fired for lack of performance, they often take with them a sizable check –sometimes worth millions of dollars.
In Pictures: Six Ways To Secure Your Parachute

So why is it that women usually have trouble negotiating packages of their own? The answer: You get what you ask for. But far too often, women don’t ask for enough or don’t ask at all.

Top female executives who’ve experienced this personally or witnessed other women making the same mistakes suggest there are three perspectives that keep women from larger exit packages, which ideally should be negotiated before one actually takes the job. There are the “I don’t knows,” women unaware of opportunities and their rights; the “I don’t asks,” women who think asking will jeopardize getting the job; and the “I don’t boasts,” women who feel it is impolite to spotlight their accomplishments.

The “I don’t knows” don’t know that getting a big package going out depends on your packaging going in. “I don’t knows” are often found within the ranks of women just beginning their careers. “Many young women are often naive when they enter the job market,” concedes Cheryl Bachelder, former president and chief concept officer of KFC, now an executive coach and consultant in Michigan. She received what amounted to chicken feed at first. “I was a terrible negotiator early in my career,” admits Bachelder. She believes too many women think that hard work alone will ensure they’ll get a good package when they leave. “I always just assumed that I’d be treated fairly and I was just going to work hard and they’d pay me fine.”
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Job Interview Tips — Why Preparation Pays Off

If you’ve won an interview for a job, that’s cause for celebration in itself. It shows that your prospective employer considers you to be a viable candidate for the position you want. Now it’s time for you to brush up your interview skills and get ready to show your ‘best self’ to help you land the job you dream of.

Careful preparation is an essential component of a polished interview performance to help you outperform the competition. How much do you already know about the hiring company? Do you know who will be interviewing you? What sort of tough questions could come up — and how would you deal with them?

Feeling nervous already? Don’t worry, that’s energy you can turn to your advantage. Doing thorough homework helps to get you ready emotionally as well as intellectually to make your best impression. Here are four ways to get ready for the challenge of an interview and market yourself effectively.

1. Find out as much as you can about the company you want to work for. Don’t be caught out by topics that expose gaps in your understanding of the business or industry. Good background knowledge can help you deal with those tricky interview questions that require you to ‘think on your feet’. You may also discover relevant topics and pressing concerns that you can research in advance.

* Visit the company website and find out the names and roles of key personnel
* Research the main departments and the products or services that the company offers
* Do an online search for news items, press releases and other useful information

2. Learn about your interviewer. If you’ll be meeting more than one person, try to find out in advance what each of them does for the company and see if there’s information about their recent achievements and activities; there may be an opportunity to refer to some of these details in your interview. Show your interest and enthusiasm for the job by being well-briefed on important issues.

3. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. A practice interview can help you to anticipate major discussion points and get experience in dealing with tough questions. And don’t just focus on the content of your answers: interviewers gain a lot of information from non-verbal cues and body language. If you’re practicing with a friend, ask for feedback on the impact of your delivery and gestures.
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Five ways to find a job

Career experts say most job seekers do not know how to effectively seek employment. Understanding the five major ways can help you develop a search strategy.

Each of the five major ways utilizes traditional methods and today’s technology. Each one has advantages and disadvantages.

The traditional methods are newspaper employment classifieds, personal contacts, networking, and direct mail. Fortunately, technology provides an additional powerful tool, the computer and its many dimensions.

Newspaper employment ads and weekly employment publications are one of the most widely used tools. They show positions available by regional and local employers. The publications are readily accessible and organized by job category. Most positions advertised are in the lower and mid-level range. They help show in one publication many employers hiring and the type of positions that are in demand. However, they often do not show the higher skilled positions, higher management positions or national companies looking for employees.

Many newspapers make the ads more accessible by placing advertised jobs online in coordination with print ads.

Using personal contacts - friends and colleagues from work or school - is another traditional method. Many people greatly underutilize this method, because they do not like to ask for help.

The biggest advantage in using personal contacts is you that do not need a personal introduction. Your contacts know who you are and many will know your abilities. Some may serve as references in advance of a job interview. People are often hired (with little formality) on an initial recommendation by a person the hiring manager knows.

The drawback is that most people have a limited number of personal contacts.

Many career experts consider networking the most successful way of finding a job. It can include using your personal contacts to meet others, going to business or social functions to meet others, or even making calls.
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How to Avoid IT Interview Flubs

A study released the week of Aug. 28 by Menlo Park, Calif., staffing firm Accountemps found that one of the most common mistakes made by candidates in job interviews was having little or no knowledge of the company, according to 47 percent of the senior executives surveyed.

While IT recruiters and managers still peg a lack of preparation near the top of their lists of interview gaffes, they cited many others that turned interviewees from dream candidates to inevitable nightmare employees in a matter of moments.

Below, eWEEK rounds up some of the worst offenses, and while we’re certain that none of you would ever make such obvious errors, it never hurts to review before your next interview.

# Late to the interview means late on projects and deadlines

You’d think in this day and age that something as simple as showing up to the right place on time would be a no-brainer, and yet, hiring managers said that candidates arrive tardy all the time.

Brian Gabrielson, national practice director for Robert Half Technology, a provider of IT professional services in Mountain View, Calif., said that interviewees sometimes forget that when the competition is tough, it often comes down to the little things like punctuality.

“All things being equal, I’m going to pick the person who showed up on time, looked me in the eye and had manners,” said Gabrielson.

eWEEK special report: The State of IT Employment

Showing up on time is more than the icing on the cake, however. It conveys to potential employers that you will be equally punctual with deadlines, and that you will be organized enough to keep projects in line.

# Lack of enthusiasm means you don’t care about your work

One of the most aggravating interview gaffes noted by IT recruiters was a lack of enthusiasm for the job.

“One of them actually said, ‘I don’t want to work with people. I just want to be left alone to do my job,’” Gabrielson told eWEEK. “Can you imagine the impression that left?”

This lack of interest in the job also applies to individuals too eager to move up the ladder; even if a company has high hopes for you, they still need you to start with the task at hand.

Heather Galler, CEO of JobKite, a Land O’ Lakes, Fla., national job site said: “A client told me about someone interviewing for a help desk position, and when asked what kind of work they wanted to do, he said ‘I sure don’t want to get stuck answering phones all day!’”

While Galler attributed this comment to the risk that sometimes comes when a more senior person says that they are willing to do simpler work, needless to say, this individual’s chance at getting the job was immediately nixed.
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