After I found my last job a couple years ago at age 58, I had pretty much resigned myself to working there until retirement. I like where I am and what I do, even though it is way under my skillset, but the four-hour and 90 mile round trip commute to Seattle several days a week was wearing on me. I had chatted with a few employers since, but discovered that age discrimination is a real thing, and few people want to hire an older white male in a female-dominated healthcare profession. 'Overqualified' and 'we can't afford you' is what I heard most often, and I was never sure if this was the case, because I do have 35 years + experience in my field, degrees up the wazoo, and my minimum salary is commensurate with qualifications, or it was a proxy for age discrimination. I am pretty sure a lot of these potential employers looked at my age, calculated how long I would likely be working, and decided it would not be worth the effort.
A couple of months ago, my wife and I were at a restaurant, and I waved at one of my risk management colleagues from the local hospital who was there with her husband. She came running over, grabbed me, and told me she had just heard of a new position that was going to be posted, I would be perfect for it, and I should apply immediately. This is with a very large multi-state healthcare organization, and I had in fact worked for this organization several years ago as a corporate risk manager at the corporate offices. More to the point, this position would be with the medical group division, and the office would be 25 miles from my home.
So the position was posted, and I applied for it, even though I was overqualified, and was not a nurse, as per the job description. After three panel interviews, I was pleasantly surprised when the recruiter called last night and offered me the position. I start at the end of March. It is a substantial increase in pay and benefits over my current job and the commute will be 35 minutes or so each way, and I can ride my motorcycle to work in the good weather. I will also continue working directly with patients and providers, which I prefer over working strictly in the insurance and legal arenas.
So here I am, at age 60, setting off on a new venture. I had planned to pull the plug and retire at age 62 in my current job, but if I like the new position, I may just keep working until 65 or 67. If I don't like it, I will just retire period.
The other thing that was interesting to me was the power of networking. My one colleague thought of me when she heard about the position, my references spoke well of me, and I had scads of colleagues in the local area contacting the chief medical officer and CEO of the medical group division singing my praises. They interviewed several candidates but I was the overwhelming favorite of the interview teams. I was humbled and impressed by how networking worked in my favor.
