Are they stupid or what?

I just came across this interesting assessment of the BENEFITS of hiring a 50 plus job seeker. Being in that crowd myself, it was both compelling and encouraging. Maybe more people my age who are seeking their next job need to make this a greater selling point.

The post was written by Wendy at Gen Plus. She gives several reasons that she gleaned for hiring a 50 plus person.

1. Huge gain in terms of training time. The experience of the mature worker reduces the amount of time it takes to get a new hire up and running.
2. Experience. The mature worker can actually make decisions - generally good ones-- based on a sound workplace background, which results in fewer costly mistakes.
3. Longevity. With the costs of continually retraining new staff resulting in both lost time and revenues, a mature worker is more likely to stick around if they are satisfied with their compensation, company culture and benefits. Career path is not necessarily the all important carrot dangling from the stick.
4. Value of time spent equals value-added. The younger worker may be willing to put in a 12 hour day, but will not necessarily produce the results that a more mature worker would produce in a much shorter time. If a mature worker can come to a conclusion in twenty minutes that a "green" worker would need a day to figure out, then "who cares how much time they put into the job? They get results!"

From the employer/hiring perspective this can make some good sense and may show a need to rethink some recruiting strategies. From the job seeker perspective, maybe this is just the bit of ammunition that one's flagging self-confidence needs to market your perceived liability as a huge asset.