<h2 id="0894e3d2-0eea-4ce5-b1e5-3888798347f2" data-toc-id="0894e3d2-0eea-4ce5-b1e5-3888798347f2" style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1.2;">Over 50 and all of a sudden you’re ‘too qualified’ for that job you just applied for</h2> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s be direct about what has happened.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are in this position, at least in part, because of your age. The corporate world has a structural bias against senior professionals. Your experience commands a high salary, which makes you expensive. Your seniority makes you a threat to younger managers who fear being overshadowed. Your depth of knowledge is seen as rigidity rather than wisdom.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have been labelled “overqualified,” which is corporate code for “too old.” You have been restructured, right-sized, or simply not called back after interviews where you were clearly the most capable candidate in the room.<table style="min-width: 25px;"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Make your age a superpower.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Path A accepts this system and tries to squeeze back onto the conveyor belt. It requires you to compete with candidates half your age, accept salaries that ignore your accumulated value, and tolerate the indignity of explaining your worth to people who have never faced the challenges you have already conquered.<h2 id="ab36927f-2cc6-4958-bd40-c15ccc01162a" data-toc-id="ab36927f-2cc6-4958-bd40-c15ccc01162a" style="font-size: 24px; font-weight: 600; line-height: 1.2;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 22pt; font-family: &quot;EB Garamond&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Ageism Bypass</h2><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s be direct about what has happened. You are in this position, at least in part, because of your age. The corporate world has a structural bias against senior professionals. Your experience commands a high salary, which makes you expensive. Your seniority makes you a threat to younger managers who fear being overshadowed. Your depth of knowledge is seen as rigidity rather than wisdom.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have been labelled “overqualified,” which is corporate code for “too old.” You have been restructured, right-sized, or simply not called back after interviews where you were clearly the most capable candidate in the room.<table style="min-width: 25px;"><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr><td colspan="1" rowspan="1"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 18pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 700; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Make your age a superpower.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Path A accepts this system and tries to squeeze back onto the conveyor belt. It requires you to compete with candidates half your age, accept salaries that ignore your accumulated value, and tolerate the indignity of explaining your worth to people who have never faced the challenges you have already conquered.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Path B bypasses the system entirely.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When you position yourself as the owner of a named methodology—a specialist with a book, a podcast, and a proven track record—you don’t enter the employment market at all. You don’t submit CVs to be filtered by algorithms designed to reject you. You don’t interview with HR generalists who cannot comprehend what you have accomplished.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead, you approach the market as a peer. You reach out to decision-makers directly, offering a solution to their specific problem. You demonstrate your expertise through your content before you ever have a conversation. You price your services based on the value you deliver, not the salary band of an HR job description.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the ageism bypass. It doesn’t fight the system, but it renders it irrelevant.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The irony is that the same qualities that make you “overqualified” for employment make you exceptionally qualified for independence. Your depth of experience allows you to spot patterns that juniors cannot see. Your seniority gives you the confidence to advise C-suite executives as equals. Your age, in the category world, is not a liability—it is proof that you have survived the fires and emerged with something valuable.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Executive Nomad model was built for professionals exactly like you. It converts the “disadvantage” of seniority into the advantage of authority. It allows you to monetise your judgment rather than your time. And it removes you from a game that was rigged against you from the start.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Path B is the Builder’s Discipline. You wake up and do not check the job boards. Instead, you open the document where you started your “Experience Inventory.” You spend 3 hours refining the P.D.C.O. Framework for your first named service. You draft the outline for your “Authority Asset,” perhaps the first chapter of your book or the script for your first podcast episode. You reach out to a peer, not to ask for a job, but to interview them for your ecosystem.<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14pt; font-family: &quot;IBM Plex Serif&quot;, serif; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This path is quiet. There is no immediate dopamine hit from a recruiter’s reply. It requires discipline to build an asset that may not pay off for 90 days. It requires you to hold your nerve while you construct the machine.

Been labelled “overqualified,"? You have been restructured, right-sized, or simply not called back after interviews where you were clearly the most capable candidate in the room.

The Ageism Bypass

Over 50 and all of a sudden you’re ‘too qualified’ for that job you just applied for

Become a Digital Nomad with a high pay, low tax executive strategy that you can run through a location independent business from anywhere on the planet. (We've Been Doing This Since 1991)

Become an Executive Level Digital Nomad. Learn how to create a Location Independent digital Nomad style business, but with executive level pay, living anywhere you want. Full time part time or passing through.

The Ageism Bypass

The Ageism Bypass

Related Posts

Looking like a Pro on Camera

The reframe that changes everything

Digital Nomad vs Executive Nomad. The difference most people miss.

Exec Burned Out? Build a Laptop Consulting Biz

What Is an Executive Nomad? Making Your Age Your Greatest Asset