I find it odd that someone like this who is clearly a “go-getter” doesn’t just switch trades. Those skills are transferable.
Maybe she’s actually applying for a salary and not a job?
JaegerBane on
I have to admit that it’s a bit tiresome to hear anyone who’s struggling to find the job automatically fall back on ‘the government needs to step in’. A few weeks ago there was a spurt of articles where *grads* were saying the same thing, but opposite reasons – employers want experience and they don’t have it, the seniors are employed and AI is wiping out the juniors. Prior to that it was NEETs saying the same thing about how everything needed a degree. The government can’t just subsidise everyone’s job, that’s the point behind the benefits system.
I’d probably agree that her age is a factor but I think she’s coming at it from the wrong direction – at 50, with that many qualifications, there’s going to be an expectation that you bring a ton of experience to the table and it sounds like she’s jumped careers a few times *before* she was out of work for 2 years, so she’s kind of paying the price for her experience being broad but skin deep. No-one’s hiring a 50 year old with a 20 year old’s experience for anything close to the salary range she’s likely expecting. Not to mention it sounds like she’s trying to get into an industry she doesn’t seem to have any actual experience of.
webbyyy on
I’m nearly 50 and on the job market at the moment too. I’ve applied to 50 jobs since the beginning of the year when I found out I was being made redundant (again). I’ve had a decent number of interviews and a few to the second stage. It’s getting harder and I’m sure my age has something to do with it as I’m not in a very senior position. Some of my skills are transferrable but I’m not a graduate so moving to a more junior position in a different role will be harder.
Shockwavepulsar on
When jobs are so thin on the ground at the minute it does seem unfair for recruiters and interviewers to question gaps in employment and prioritise those with smaller gaps. It just makes the wider job market situation worse.
SmallPromiseQueen on
Digital marketing is a bit of a tough one because lots of people entered that sector because of Covid and needing something wfh.
You’d think with a degree in psychotherapy she’d be able to be a self employed therapist? There’s a lot of demand for that. She says she’s doing a bit of that at the moment but I’m so sure she could do it full time. Maybe she needs to look at what’s already offered in her area and find a bit of a gap. Eg if there’s no one offering emdr she could get qualified in that. Maybe there’s a stigma against older people in digital marketing (I think it’s more that entry level jobs have lower wages) but there definitely isn’t that stigma in psychotherapy and if anything being a bit older is probably helpful in fostering trust in the therapeutic relationship.
Prince_John on
This is a natural consequence of there being a million fewer jobs than jobseekers. Even if everyone was perfectly skilled, perfectly motivated and located in exactly the right place, there would be a large pool of unemployed.
We need proper investment in our crumbling infrastructure and public services to create the employment opportunities the country needs.
Discopants180 on
Been in digital marketing for over 10 years and done plenty of hiring in that time too.
I can assure you nobody in the industry gives a shit about a Masters in marketing let alone two.
It’s a handy foot in the door for a low paid/internship role and that’s about it.
Tube_Warmer on
Man, it sure is weird how we started getting all these people coming in at the same time that the demand for housing and jobs went up, aint it? Oh, wait. I just said something bigoted, didnt I? Im so naughty…
CraigNotCreg on
The market is indeed really tough right now. There are too few jobs and every one, if you take LinkedIn as a benchmark, has hundreds of applicants, most of which won’t even be reviewed. Many of the applicants are from abroad, even if the job specifically states it’s for UK residents only. AI has made it so much easier to apply for jobs, and that’s a double-edged sword. My advice is to apply every morning, so you’re in the first 30-40 applicants. If you’re not already on LinkedIn, create an account and try to get to 300-400 connections by adding everyone you can from previous positions.
Also, learn how to use AI to help. Everyone else is, so you’ll be at a disadvantage if you’re not. Don’t use a free AI account as they tend to suck. Google Gemini pro is about £20 a month. You can upload your CV and tell it your life situations and what you’re looking for. Once you’ve given it the job spec, it can then tailor your CV for each role and help write covering letters. You should definitely edit these and put them into your own words, as AI isn’t great at writing, and recruiters can spot their fingerprints. Be mindful that AIs hallucinate, so check the output.
Google Gemini Pro also has a Deep Research mode, where it can scan the web for you. You can tell it what jobs you’re looking for and where, even tell it what job sites to avoid if you’ve already searched them, and they can find some interesting positions.
You can then add to your CV your new AI skills.
SableSnail on
Digital Marketing is in a particularly bad state as the barrier to entry is lower than for something really specialised like low-latency C++ development or whatever, but it’s also within the grasp of what the LLM’s can do a lot of, and it was popular before as a softer high paying job.
Even before AI I remember there was pretty brutal competition (one of my friends worked in the field and shared his job hunting woes down the pub) and nowadays with the economy doing even worse and the rise of AI I can only imagine its even worse.
Desperate_Craig on
Welcome to the club.
The job market right now has never been as clustered as It Is right now, and you may have hundreds of applications applying for a single job vacancy, meaning vacancies could be closed In a matter of days If they find the right candidate.
There are jobs available out there, but It may be jobs no one wants to do, such as the failing and decayed community care sector that has been Ignored for decades and Is constantly under pressure.
SunDriedFart on
“two master’s qualifications in marketing and psychotherapy”
anangrywizard on
Genuinely saw a job today.
“This is a job that Jill, our AI recruiter, is recruiting for on behalf of one of our customers.”
“She will pick the best candidate from Jack’s network.”
So you’ve got to convince 1 AI you’re worthy be in it’s “network” and then hope the next AI selects you, no doubt to have multiple interviews for a face off with other applicants in the coliseum of Darlington where the winner gets the off of guaranteed minimum wage & up to 28 days’ paid annual leave.
Acceptable-You-4813 on
Ageism is real. Even if you hide it on your cv they can tell when they see you
essres on
Anyone who has made 4000+ applications with next to no interviews is clearly doing a very bad
If she’s in marketing and can’t market herself then I wouldn’t give her a job either
I guarantee she is making some easily fixable mistakes in her applications.
But no, it’s obviously discrimination that is causing all the problems, not the applications themselves
Maximum-Flat on
Welcome to the club of staying with your parents after adulthood. They will welcome you with open arms for first few months and judge you for not making what you used to be after half a year or so.
thesteelmaker on
BS. Sign up to an agency, you will have work tomorrow. It won’t be glamorous, you may get grubby, but the people will mostly be OK and you will take home just over £400pw for picking things off a belt.
JoeyJoeC on
Good thing she did that, it would have eventually fallen down and hurt someone.
7148675309 on
Ultimately she is trying to switch industries and thats very difficult.
In today’s environment – and having just started a job after being out of work for 3 months – companies want people that they know can do the job. The low this hire – has done the job before. So the people that get interviews and make it to the final – have done it all before – and it is a question of fit.
Her easiest path – is not to switch jobs.
Also – applying for jobs every day is also not a strategy. You need to focus.
I applied for one job. Everything else came through recruiters and my network.
FunParsnip4567 on
“Ms Chummun, who holds an undergraduate degree, two master’s qualifications in marketing and psychotherapy, and is in her third year of a health and social care doctorate, ”
Sounds like the perfect candidate for a digital marketing position. /s
suihpares on
I was made redundant due to government lockdowns.
I moved home to care for my parent.
I got two temp full time jobs, one after the other.
I was falsely accused by the benefits system and it took 2 years to resolve while they suspended payments.
Because of the UK government and because I honoured my parent I am trapped here , single, in poverty and debt and unable to get a job after 20,000 applications.
AonghusMacKilkenny on
I find these sort of articles hard to believe, are you genuinely tailoring your CV to every job application or are you just sending the same thing dozens of openings without any modification?
No-Photograph3463 on
Another case of the job application scatter gun not working. Applying to over 5 jobs a day means your just finiding job, uploading generic CV pressing send and repeating time and time again.
Spending abit of time tailoring CVs and cover letters etc to the job your applying for and using what’s in the job description to link to your skills would give so much better traction. Also don’t use AI at all for any text, as it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Ok_Speech_3709 on
Ageism is real! Severance compensation laws for those over 50 should be increased !!!
24 Comments
I find it odd that someone like this who is clearly a “go-getter” doesn’t just switch trades. Those skills are transferable.
Maybe she’s actually applying for a salary and not a job?
I have to admit that it’s a bit tiresome to hear anyone who’s struggling to find the job automatically fall back on ‘the government needs to step in’. A few weeks ago there was a spurt of articles where *grads* were saying the same thing, but opposite reasons – employers want experience and they don’t have it, the seniors are employed and AI is wiping out the juniors. Prior to that it was NEETs saying the same thing about how everything needed a degree. The government can’t just subsidise everyone’s job, that’s the point behind the benefits system.
I’d probably agree that her age is a factor but I think she’s coming at it from the wrong direction – at 50, with that many qualifications, there’s going to be an expectation that you bring a ton of experience to the table and it sounds like she’s jumped careers a few times *before* she was out of work for 2 years, so she’s kind of paying the price for her experience being broad but skin deep. No-one’s hiring a 50 year old with a 20 year old’s experience for anything close to the salary range she’s likely expecting. Not to mention it sounds like she’s trying to get into an industry she doesn’t seem to have any actual experience of.
I’m nearly 50 and on the job market at the moment too. I’ve applied to 50 jobs since the beginning of the year when I found out I was being made redundant (again). I’ve had a decent number of interviews and a few to the second stage. It’s getting harder and I’m sure my age has something to do with it as I’m not in a very senior position. Some of my skills are transferrable but I’m not a graduate so moving to a more junior position in a different role will be harder.
When jobs are so thin on the ground at the minute it does seem unfair for recruiters and interviewers to question gaps in employment and prioritise those with smaller gaps. It just makes the wider job market situation worse.
Digital marketing is a bit of a tough one because lots of people entered that sector because of Covid and needing something wfh.
You’d think with a degree in psychotherapy she’d be able to be a self employed therapist? There’s a lot of demand for that. She says she’s doing a bit of that at the moment but I’m so sure she could do it full time. Maybe she needs to look at what’s already offered in her area and find a bit of a gap. Eg if there’s no one offering emdr she could get qualified in that. Maybe there’s a stigma against older people in digital marketing (I think it’s more that entry level jobs have lower wages) but there definitely isn’t that stigma in psychotherapy and if anything being a bit older is probably helpful in fostering trust in the therapeutic relationship.
This is a natural consequence of there being a million fewer jobs than jobseekers. Even if everyone was perfectly skilled, perfectly motivated and located in exactly the right place, there would be a large pool of unemployed.
We need proper investment in our crumbling infrastructure and public services to create the employment opportunities the country needs.
Been in digital marketing for over 10 years and done plenty of hiring in that time too.
I can assure you nobody in the industry gives a shit about a Masters in marketing let alone two.
It’s a handy foot in the door for a low paid/internship role and that’s about it.
Man, it sure is weird how we started getting all these people coming in at the same time that the demand for housing and jobs went up, aint it? Oh, wait. I just said something bigoted, didnt I? Im so naughty…
The market is indeed really tough right now. There are too few jobs and every one, if you take LinkedIn as a benchmark, has hundreds of applicants, most of which won’t even be reviewed. Many of the applicants are from abroad, even if the job specifically states it’s for UK residents only. AI has made it so much easier to apply for jobs, and that’s a double-edged sword. My advice is to apply every morning, so you’re in the first 30-40 applicants. If you’re not already on LinkedIn, create an account and try to get to 300-400 connections by adding everyone you can from previous positions.
Also, learn how to use AI to help. Everyone else is, so you’ll be at a disadvantage if you’re not. Don’t use a free AI account as they tend to suck. Google Gemini pro is about £20 a month. You can upload your CV and tell it your life situations and what you’re looking for. Once you’ve given it the job spec, it can then tailor your CV for each role and help write covering letters. You should definitely edit these and put them into your own words, as AI isn’t great at writing, and recruiters can spot their fingerprints. Be mindful that AIs hallucinate, so check the output.
Google Gemini Pro also has a Deep Research mode, where it can scan the web for you. You can tell it what jobs you’re looking for and where, even tell it what job sites to avoid if you’ve already searched them, and they can find some interesting positions.
You can then add to your CV your new AI skills.
Digital Marketing is in a particularly bad state as the barrier to entry is lower than for something really specialised like low-latency C++ development or whatever, but it’s also within the grasp of what the LLM’s can do a lot of, and it was popular before as a softer high paying job.
Even before AI I remember there was pretty brutal competition (one of my friends worked in the field and shared his job hunting woes down the pub) and nowadays with the economy doing even worse and the rise of AI I can only imagine its even worse.
Welcome to the club.
The job market right now has never been as clustered as It Is right now, and you may have hundreds of applications applying for a single job vacancy, meaning vacancies could be closed In a matter of days If they find the right candidate.
There are jobs available out there, but It may be jobs no one wants to do, such as the failing and decayed community care sector that has been Ignored for decades and Is constantly under pressure.
“two master’s qualifications in marketing and psychotherapy”
Genuinely saw a job today.
“This is a job that Jill, our AI recruiter, is recruiting for on behalf of one of our customers.”
“She will pick the best candidate from Jack’s network.”
So you’ve got to convince 1 AI you’re worthy be in it’s “network” and then hope the next AI selects you, no doubt to have multiple interviews for a face off with other applicants in the coliseum of Darlington where the winner gets the off of guaranteed minimum wage & up to 28 days’ paid annual leave.
Ageism is real. Even if you hide it on your cv they can tell when they see you
Anyone who has made 4000+ applications with next to no interviews is clearly doing a very bad
If she’s in marketing and can’t market herself then I wouldn’t give her a job either
I guarantee she is making some easily fixable mistakes in her applications.
But no, it’s obviously discrimination that is causing all the problems, not the applications themselves
Welcome to the club of staying with your parents after adulthood. They will welcome you with open arms for first few months and judge you for not making what you used to be after half a year or so.
BS. Sign up to an agency, you will have work tomorrow. It won’t be glamorous, you may get grubby, but the people will mostly be OK and you will take home just over £400pw for picking things off a belt.
Good thing she did that, it would have eventually fallen down and hurt someone.
Ultimately she is trying to switch industries and thats very difficult.
In today’s environment – and having just started a job after being out of work for 3 months – companies want people that they know can do the job. The low this hire – has done the job before. So the people that get interviews and make it to the final – have done it all before – and it is a question of fit.
Her easiest path – is not to switch jobs.
Also – applying for jobs every day is also not a strategy. You need to focus.
I applied for one job. Everything else came through recruiters and my network.
“Ms Chummun, who holds an undergraduate degree, two master’s qualifications in marketing and psychotherapy, and is in her third year of a health and social care doctorate, ”
Sounds like the perfect candidate for a digital marketing position. /s
I was made redundant due to government lockdowns.
I moved home to care for my parent.
I got two temp full time jobs, one after the other.
I was falsely accused by the benefits system and it took 2 years to resolve while they suspended payments.
Because of the UK government and because I honoured my parent I am trapped here , single, in poverty and debt and unable to get a job after 20,000 applications.
I find these sort of articles hard to believe, are you genuinely tailoring your CV to every job application or are you just sending the same thing dozens of openings without any modification?
Another case of the job application scatter gun not working. Applying to over 5 jobs a day means your just finiding job, uploading generic CV pressing send and repeating time and time again.
Spending abit of time tailoring CVs and cover letters etc to the job your applying for and using what’s in the job description to link to your skills would give so much better traction. Also don’t use AI at all for any text, as it sticks out like a sore thumb.
Ageism is real! Severance compensation laws for those over 50 should be increased !!!