Believe it or not, but your older and wiser years can help you land that dream job even if you think you’re too old. Organizations have always needed a fine breed of senior managers in their golden (older) years. Some of America’s largest corporations: American Express, Boeing, or Toyota hire strictly based on your personal anxiousness and experience. These companies have sometimes discovered old workers are the best leaders when it comes to embracing uncertainty and dealing with challenges.With the proper morale older job candidates can sit down at the interview table and sell their ability to make quick, experienced, and meaningful business decisions.
But what type of anxiety are employers looking for? The type of anxiety they’re looking for is a catalyst of organizational growth and change, the ability to tackle a difficult dilemma or take a leap of faith. Too much anxiety though is the opposite, it is mired in negativity and aggressiveness. Too much of it can lead to a status quo fearful of change and susceptible to arrogant mistakes. On the contrast, too little anxiety is marked with lazy complacency and a belief in some sort of invisible hand that’ll take care of the organization itself. The problem with too little anxiety or too much is that a business is neither on cruise control or sitting still. Organizations are dynamic and anxious creatures that require complex organization structures to constantly reorganize, improve, and challenge each other.
Having just the right amount of energy for an older job candidate means constantly moving back and forth, always questioning more than answering. For every one answer an anxious, wiser, and older job applicant has ten questions. They’re ready to change, but anxiety causes them to count ten times and cut only once. This small group of people are best prepared to deal with ever changing situations in an ever changing world. This small minority of experienced and smart older job applicants are the people corporate America and their headhunters dream of.
As good as it is for old workers to sell themselves as “anxious” job candidates in job interviews there needs to be some caution. As organizations grow and difficult decisions are made, anxious managers are often pulled in several directions. They act as bridges between departments, answer to an ever broadening chain of command, and inevitably get tired. Their natural ability to solve problems, in some situations, can morph itself into negative anxiety. The bold, honest and strong leadership job interviewers are looking for falls apart and an ugly upredictable, aggitated and moody leadership takes its place. The stresses of business can become especially humiliating for personal relationships and hurt all workers alike. It’s the job of senior management to make sure they encourage positive anxiety and help deal with negative anxiety.
If you’ve ever worked with a fresh college intern, you’ll know all about managing anxiety in the people around you. As adults looking for work we need help managing our work anxiety too. We’ve got fears of our own, we can either overcome them and climb the corporate ladder, or we can let them overcome us and struggle our way up the slippery corporate slope. Whether we climb the ladder or struggle up the slippery slope it comes down to good or bad leadership. You see your intern hesitating, double checking, and nervous. But when he says he can do it, you step back and let him do it. That’s real leadership - a leadership that fosters positive anxiety, self-mediation and problem solving.
Uncertainty and anxiety in organizational structures shape how you see yourself and others, and how others see you. It influences how colleagues treat you and how prospective employers hire you. As we look for work categorized as old workers, we can transform our skepticism into positive anxiety and use it to convince interviewers just how capable we are to manage manage new people and environments.
When you manage anxiety positively, and correctly, it can become a powerful force. Use it as a marketable feature when you make the interview rounds. Don’t let being an old worker discourage you. Your work experience might mean a lot, but your ability to handle anxiety can differentiate you as someone which is better able to learn, change and navigate the complexities of a new corporate culture and more capable of leading the organization to new levels of success.
