Contractor Age Handicap
A female contractor who says she has both a contractor age handicap and a female handicap sent us this.
She says that this makes it doubly difficult to get new contracts but she does manage to get work OK.
Here’s how she does it.
Female Handicap
I am an IT Contractor, and being over 50 and female handicaps me.
Yet I manage to get work OK. Here is what to do.
She posted this as Comments after one of our articles.
Ray of Hope for Older Female Contractors Despite Contractor Age Handicap
Well, I would like to offer a ray of hope here.
I suffer from the additional handicap of being not only well over 50, but female to boot.
Hunting for contracts can be a bit of a nightmare and earlier this year for the first time ever I had the experience of going for an interview which I was sure had been positive and then finding out after a very long wait that someone else had got the job.
Frankly, it didn’t help to discover that that person was simply cheaper, being from the Indian sub-continent.
I wasn’t too old, just too expensive.
Working Well Despite Contractor Age Handicap
But I’m working now, in a good position that uses my skills well, at a rate as good as any I’ve ever had, and with prospects of at least a year’s work ahead.
So I would say to anyone out of work:
1) Don’t tell yourself you’re too old to learn new skills. That’s rubbish and it will make you really old before your time.
2) There are still jobs for oldies as long as you are willing to keep on applying, and I do mean applying – sometimes 8 or 9 times every day – for everything that’s a reasonable fit.
3) Don’t give up. Keep on kissing those frogs. One of them will eventually turn out to be a prince. (Maybe you’re not all that into princes – choose your own metaphor. )
Even if you are a female with a further age handicap you can still get contract work.
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