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San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Mike Cassidy column: Over 50 and out of work in Silicon Valley [San Jose Mercury News, Calif.](San Jose Mercury News (CA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Apr. 30--Jeff Winters isn't one to moan and whine about life's unfairness. He's one tough guy, who'll drop and give you 80 push-ups if you don't believe him. He's a Vietnam vet who survived four decades in Silicon Valley's brutal semiconductor industry and beat prostate cancer. So in 2006 when he found himself over 60 and out of a job, it was no time to curl up in a ball. Instead, he went to ProMatch, a Sunnyvale nonprofit that aims to help professionals help each other find work. He cofounded a tire recycling company with a partner he met at the gym. But he wasn't finished. Winters stuck with ProMatch, volunteering to provide career counseling. He developed a passion for helping older workers find jobs. And more important, he found others who shared his passion -- others who found themselves looking for work in their 50s and 60s. Getting laid off isn't easy for anyone. But for workers over 45, Winters says, workers who felt they'd contributed for decades, mastered skills and developed the wisdom to handle all that is thrown at them, it can be particularly jarring. "For somebody older," Winters, 65, tells me, "this is a traumatic experience." He races through the questions older workers confront when they're shown the door: "How am I going to send my kids to college? Can I hang onto my dream house? Have I lost face with my family? Do I really have any value?" Not on his shortlist, but certainly on his mind, is the biggest question of all: Who in the world is going to hire me? Few places on Earth celebrate youth the way Silicon Valley does. (OK, there is Hollywood.) Look at the face of Facebook, 25-year-old Mark Zuckerberg. Consider the fascination with the fabulous wealth amassed at an early age by the Google guys and the Yahoo boys. The fact that tech companies routinely pass over older candidates for younger talent is the valley's biggest open secret. "It's absolutely there," Winters says of age discrimination. But he's not a whiner, remember? And neither is Cher Forman, 62, a former human relations executive with Applied Materials, who left her job to care for her ailing husband and found re-entry into the work force was daunting after his death. Or David Goldstein, 60, an IT manager who was laid off by Fairchild in 2003 and lost his startup job in 2008. The three met at ProMatch, where they hatched the idea for a website that would offer some of what ProMatch does, but virtually and nationwide. After more than a year of R&D, the three launched OurExperienceCounts.com this week. Connie Brock, a career counselor who helps oversee ProMatch, says she's generally skeptical about online job-hunting sites because real-world networking is so important. But, she says, the Our Experience site has potential. There certainly is a market. Of the 15 million unemployed in the country, nearly a third are 45 or older. "What I do see is a lot of people in this age bracket feel disenfranchised and isolated, and their way of navigating the world is through the Internet," says Brock, who notes that the site provides a way to build virtual communities to counter isolation. "Time will tell if it's effective." The fledgling site will host video workshops on topics such as resume writing, interviewing and networking. It includes blogs about looking for work and the challenges for older people hunting for jobs. There are message boards and advice columns. The founders have turned to experts to help with the ideas and content. No one is making money yet, but the founders hope to build a profitable business, eventually charging for some features, selling advertising and contracting with companies looking for outplacement services. For now the site is running on angel investment and the belief that it can do some good. And the act of launching it makes a powerful statement, Goldstein says. "It shows that people our age, we're not dead," he says. "We come up with ideas and we can reinvent ourselves." It's a fact that many older workers never doubted, and one many of their younger counterparts still have trouble accepting. Not that the OurExperienceCounts crew is complaining. They've got better things to do. Contact Mike Cassidy at [email protected] or 408-920-5536. Follow him at Twitter.com/mikecassidy. null FOR MORE INFORMATION ProMatch For more on ProMatch, see www.promatch.org Phone: 408-736-2391 OurExperienceCounts For more on OurExperienceCounts see www.ourexperiencecounts.com E-mail: [email protected] To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mercurynews.com. Copyright (c) 2010, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |