Can't Get Hired After 40? What Actually Works Right Now
You applied. You were qualified. And either you got the rejection email, or you got nothing at all. That's not bad luck, and it's not you doing something wrong. This episode gets into why it's happening right now and what actually helps, both in the job search and outside of it.
Season two of Just a Number opens with real numbers, two live court cases, and a flat-out list of ways to bring in money that don't depend on getting past a hiring filter at all. No funnel, no certification, no waiting around for someone to pick you. You can also read the full transcript here.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Job searches now average almost 20 weeks for ages 45 to 54, and over 36 weeks for 65 and up, nearly double what younger job seekers face.
More than half of workers 50 and older go through a layoff or get pushed out before they choose to retire, and most never recover their previous pay.
Two live legal cases, including a $365,000 settlement, confirm that hiring software has automatically rejected candidates by age.
Sometimes the resume isn't the problem, because sometimes a human never read it at all.
Tenacity, work ethic, and a built-in BS detector are real advantages right now, not just nice ideas.
Specific ways to bring in income that don't depend on getting past a hiring filter, whether you've worked a factory floor, a retail counter, a kitchen table, or an office
"A piece of code deciding you don't exist before a human ever sees your name."
Inside the Episode
Trish opens season two by naming the numbers people are feeling but haven't seen written down: job searches stretching past 30 weeks for women over 50, and layoffs that have become the norm, not the exception. She walks through two real legal cases, a collective action against Workday's hiring software and a $365,000 settlement over software that auto-rejected candidates by age, to make the point that the silence a lot of applicants hit isn't imagined. Then she calls out the reinvention advice that's everywhere right now, buy the course, manifest the comeback, follow your passion, none of which accounts for the fact that you're also working a shift or raising a kid while trying to figure this out. The back half gets specific: real resume moves for the traditional job search, and a broad list of ways to bring in income outside of it.
Try this this week
Pull the dates. Remove your graduation year, birth year, and the years you worked each job from your resume. Keep it about what you did, not when you did it.
Lead with the last 10 to 15 years. That's what a hiring manager is actually trying to picture, you doing the job next, not your whole career history.
Skip the job boards for a week. Pick three companies you'd actually want to work for, go straight to their careers page, and apply there instead of through Indeed or LinkedIn's Easy Apply.
Text three people. Not a vague "open to opportunities" post, an actual message to three specific people telling them what you're looking for.
Name one skill you've never priced. Something from a factory job, a retail job, running a household, or an office job that you've never once thought to charge for. Write it down. That's the starting point for every income idea in this episode.
Further reading: AARP's 2026 jobs report on older workers and TheStreet's coverage of the Workday and iTutorGroup age discrimination cases.
Got a skill you've never priced? Grab the free mini-course, Package What You Know, and start turning it into something that actually pays you: tlccreative.myflodesk.com/welcome
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