MAS Recruiting-Executive Search Blog

Sharon Wagner reached out to me and wanted to be a guest writer on our blog.  As a senior herself, Sharon Wagner understands that an older body and mind impacts the daily lives of many seniors. She created SeniorFriendly.info to offer advice geared specifically toward seniors to help them make healthier choices and enjoy their golden years.

I wanted to share it with my readers as well.

​Do you plan to work after retirement? You’re not alone, and you could be making a very smart move for your retirement income. That’s because recent research shows that seniors who work after retirement, whether it’s in their dream job or in a gig position, tend to have more financial resources to help reduce stress and boost quality of life during their golden years. Figuring out which job will be best for you and how to start your post-retirement career can be tricky, though. If you want to work after your retirement, the following tips—which include examples of part-time jobs and ways technology can boost your job efforts—can help.
 
Explore Insurance Industry Options
 
Working in insurance can open up a variety of employment opportunities for seniors. If you think this may be the best bet for your post-retirement employment, you should start your job search by using sites like Glassdoor to research insurance companies. Glassdoor is a great resource for job seekers in any industry, since this site makes it easy to find in-depth information about specific companies and even check out employment reviews from current and former staff members. In addition to all of these helpful tidbits, you can also use Glassdoor to search for current job openings. These helpful features make websites like Glassdoor one-stop shops for job-seeking seniors.
 
Boost Income With a Smartphone
 
When you work as a freelancer or in sales during retirement, you need a smartphone that will help you communicate with clients and track your schedule. Getting an upgraded phone is ideal if you want to get tasks done on the go. You may even be able to find deals that will give you hundreds of dollars off your new device. Having a powerful smartphone is crucial for most jobs these days, but your phone can make you money in other ways, too. You can take surveys, scan receipts, or even sell your old stuff for some added income, and you can complete all of these simple money-making tasks from a smartphone.
 
Find a Job With Health Benefits
 
Working after retirement can supplement your income but it can also require more considerations regarding your Medicare benefits. If you plan on working full-time after your 65th birthday, for instance, you may decide that delaying Medicare coverage is a smart move for your finances. You could rely solely on your company-provided health insurance plan, or you could combine that coverage with Medicare to give yourself more care options. If you choose the latter, just be aware of which policy kicks in first for specific healthcare costs. Even if you do not want to work full-time, there may be companies that can offer you additional healthcare benefits. Companies like Lowe’s, Starbucks and Best Buy all provide benefits to part-time workers.
 
Think About a Part-Time Position
 
Finding a part-time position that also offers healthcare coverage can be tricky, but as you can see from the paragraph above, it is possible. Most of those positions will be in the retail or food service sector, which can severely limit your employment choices. If you do not want to work in retail or food service, and you do not need insurance benefits, there are other part-time jobs to consider. You can earn some extra retirement income by walking dogs, preparing taxes, or tutoring students. The benefit of these part-time positions is that you can also do most of them from the comfort of your own home. You will want to set up a functional home workspace before you start, though, since working from home can come with some challenges for your productivity.
 
Working in retirement can provide some big benefits for your finances and your overall well-being. So whether you are looking for a boosted income, an improvement in health, or just looking for other benefits, try to find a job that will help you make the most of your golden years. As much as those benefits can matter for your financial stability and your health, having the time to enjoy your retirement is equally important for your overall quality of life. 

You are looking to find a new job, so how do you go about this?  One can look at various Internet job posting sites to find roles of interest and then apply online to them.  You can also network with friends and former co-workers to let them know that you are open to new opportunities.  Another preferred method is to identify and contact various executive recruiting firms to let them know that you are on the job market.

If using an executive recruiter (or as some people call them a headhunter) is appealing to you, then here are some key points to remember when identifying, contacting, and choosing the proper executive recruiting firm:

1. Executive Recruiting Is Generally Specialized
It is very difficult for an executing recruiting firm to be proficient in more than a couple industry verticals or job specialties.  What makes an executive recruiter stand out and more helpful to a job seeker is that recruiter's depth of network and contacts.  It is difficult to obtain this depth if the recruiter is spread over too many industry verticals or job specialties.  The stronger a recruiter's network is, the better it is for you to be placed in your area of expertise.  It is very important for you to ask the recruiter what his/her area(s) of expertise is.  For example, you would not engage a technology executive recruiter if you are looking for a role in education or healthcare.

2. Executive Recruiters Are Engaged By the Client
Many job seekers are under the false impression that an executive recruiting firm will take their resume and "shop" it around to various companies.  In a sense, those job seekers want the executive recruiter to function as their agent.  This is not how the executive recruiting process works.  Executive recruiting firms are almost always engaged first by a particular client to fill a specific role.  Companies do not want executive recruiting firms to send them unsolicited resumes if there is no specific opening available.  Once the recruiting contract is signed for that specific role, the executive recruiting firm will begin the search and start to research and then contact potential candidates.  It is at this point, the executive recruiting firm will reach out to you if the role is a good match for your skills.  So, it is wise for you to get your resume to the executive recruiter to be placed in their database BEFORE an opening comes up.  Most good recruiting firms will research their database and reach out to you at this time.

3. Executive Recruiters Are Paid By the Client Not the Candidate
Never, ever pay an executive recruiter to help you find a job.  There are firms out there that will charge candidates fees (both upfront and ongoing fees) to work with a candidate to find a job, but this practice is very shady.  As mentioned in #2 above, executive recruiting firms are engaged by the client to fill a particular role.  Because of this, the client is the one who pays the executive recruiting firms upon successful completion of the recruiting contract.  Reputable recruiting firms never accept fees from the candidates and receive 100% of their revenue for their base of client companies.

4. Local Recruiting Versus Nationwide Recruiting
It is important to align yourself with an executive recruiting firm that has the proper stable of clients to help you find your next job.  Some executive recruiting firms firms may only have a client base that is local or in a certain specific region of the country.  On the other hand, some firms have clients in all regions of the US and even international clients.  Depending on your flexibility concerning relocation, it is important to ask executive recruiting firms of how broad that their client base is.

Hopefully, you will find these points very useful during your process of engaging an Executive Recruiting firm to help you find your new role!