Boomer and Boomer...what IS Boomer?

If you are a Boomer or senior, you'll relate in some way to Star Trek. Do you remember a Star Trek episode entitled "Spock's Brain"? It was a cringingly terrible episode -- but so darn bad that it is fantastic! There is a planet filled with beautiful women (per usual), but these women are controlled by a central computer that has "kidnapped" and is using Spock's brain. His brain has been taken OUT of his body and so his body is starting to fail. If the leaders of the planet don't put Spock's brain back into Spock's head, Spock will die. So at one point, Bill Shatner, in his understated style, shakes one particularly gorgeous woman, Kara, by the shoulders (I believe it was after kissing her...) and tries to explain how the Brain must be reconnected with the Body. To which Kara, with a frustrated deer in the headlights look, replies, "Brain, brain?....What is brain?"

And that is EXACTLY how the business world is currently trying to understand this next wave of what will be happening with Boomers. And we, the Boomers and young Seniors, shake our heads in awe at the complete lack of understanding of our generation...and sometimes by those in our generation. I spend a great deal of time searching out chat rooms and bulletin boards to hear what 50 Plus is saying. And the number one frustration always surrounds job search. The message is echoed all across the generation -- those from 41 to 60 and then crosses over to about 64 years old. After 64, most of the jobseekers start to give up. It doesn't mean they don't need the work. They DO. But they start to give up.

The challenge for our demographic is finding the employers who will willingly want us and appreciate the wisdom within the experience. I'll be discussing some of these challenges more in the coming weeks, but here is some food for thought. My business, Gen Plus, while offering a range of services niched to 50 Plus, primarily focuses on the area of greatest need...job search. And jobseekers are happily joining us every day. But employers are reluctantly entering into a specific search for the 50 Plusser. Our task is very challenging as I do not subscribe to other boards through affiliate programs. Generally, employers on streamed job boards are NOT targeted to our demographic, so it provides a false search and lots of work for jobseekers who will not, in fact, be considered for a position. Finding employers sincerely open to hiring 50 plus is very challenging. So what we do at Gen Plus, is identify 50 plus friendly employers -- one by one. As a result all the employers on our site are at the very least...qualified and interested in 50 plus. And more than that, when the buzz about all things Boomer dies down next year (after the first Boomer turning 60 turns...61), we'll still be here, working to find work for our membership.

So, to head back to Kara and Star Trek, I can't help but relate. Our 50 plussers, our Boomers, our young Seniors, were and are the brains of the body of the US and Canadian economy (and not to mention what is happening in the other aging countries of the world) and we are being ripped out of the body. The next five years is our window of opportunity to get Spock's brain back into Spock's body...otherwise the body will deteriorate.

That's my two cents for an early Sunday morning.