Advice Line | Bob Lewis | InfoWorld | Trapped by age | October 8, 2007 06:46 PM

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Trapped by age

October 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Trapped by age

Dear Bob ...

I work for an Heir, a Psychopath and Protégé (see "More business archetypes," Keep the Joint Running, 10/1/2007). As you can imagine, projects are interesting and can drag on forever.

I view myself as a mechanic. Mechanics rarely make it to management. They have a bad habit of telling heirs, psychopaths, and protégés what is wrong and how to fix it. They don't want to hear anything from a mechanic until the project has to be pulled out of the toilet. Once that is accomplished, the three of them line up to take credit for all of the hard work required to save the project.

It's quite a crew. I made a very poor career decision a few years ago. I'm too old now to make a move. No one is hiring 62 year old engineers. Only have to deal with them for a couple of years.

- Old

Dear Middle-aged ...

Sounds like you won the Trifecta! That's quite a "leadership" crew you have.

Just my opinion: Nobody is trapped, except people with too little talent. You might have fewer alternatives - there are companies that practice age discrimination - but that still leaves a whole lot of potential employers who would jump at the chance to hire an experienced engineer/project manager.

I'd say this is one of the two key points to make when selling yourself - that you're an experienced engineer and project manager. The other is that you haven't run out of appetite for new challenges. The biggest risk some employers are concerned about when interviewing someone more senior is that they're talking to someone who wants a comfortable place to coast to until retirement.

Make it clear that this isn't you.

- Bob

Posted by Bob Lewis on October 8, 2007 06:46 PM

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Considering that the average “tenure” of current employees is about four years, I would say that you’re safe exploring other program management opportunities. I would certainly hire someone over 60 to manage a project. What I object to is tired, old concepts of what is right and how we should do it. There’s so much that has changed in just 2 years that I would hope that a good project manager would embrace the change and channel it to a satisfactory (not wonderful) conclusion. Projects are short-term, your skills may fit short-term projects. You should consider the troubleshooter/solver role and ignore the age issue.

Posted by: Rich Clark at October 10, 2007 06:33 PM

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