The baby boomer generation is also known as silver surfers. This term comes from the categorization that they are people over 50 years old that use the internet.
Worldwide there is a vast percentage of people above 55 aged in the United States and the United Kingdom, and surprisingly this proportion exceeds over 40% in Japan, and although there might be a stigma that invisibilizes the silver surfers, the truth is that this generation is growing up more and more. And, despite being considered slow in perceiving social media trends, they are a very persistent learner, and gradually their ability to grasp online literacy is increasing. They are the age group with high purchasing power since many of them are still working and performing at high-level positions.
Related: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Changing Job
But, what does the term “silver surfers”?
The term silver surfers is used to refer to senior workers that are affluent users of the internet and online platforms. This classification has been considerably used over the last two decades to make visible the potential that this generation has and to beat the stigma they suffer.
Many people believe that senior professionals are old-fashioned, and underestimate their enormous capacity to reinvent themselves and take advantage of their expertise and knowledge.
What can these senior talents bring to the table?
Bringing senior talent to the workplace can benefit any business in multiple ways. For instance, people of this generation have extensive professional backgrounds, great judgmental skills, and an analytic mindset. Their ability to make prompt and well efficient decisions is also an advantage they can offer to their work setting. Apart from it, these seniors can act as great mentors, and they understand many references in the market that will help your business grow and reach its full potential.
Silver surfers can add enormous value to their work environment, and the new working trends and changes in technology are not an impediment, they are capable of reinventing themselves.
Related: How to Reinvent Yourself After Redundancy. From Crisis to Opportunity
Are you a silver surfer seeking to reinvent yourself professionally? Follow these tips
While reinventing yourself to be more competitive in the current work landscape, you should follow these tips:
- Assess your skills
Every transition needs time, and bridging your past and future self is the way to go ahead. Start assessing your skills, this will help you enhance the ones you’ve recognized as lacking growth, use the skills you’re an expert at, and create and structure your competencies in preparation for a career, promotions, or a job shift.
- Reach out to other professionals
Reaching out to other professionals can be beneficial as they can share their experiences, and this can be a way of testing yourself in new landscapes by understanding how other professionals are growing and working in their industries. Lastly, it can also be a great source of networking.
- Set a goal and design a plan
Setting a goal is a mandatory step as it can inspire and help you set a plan. Remember that you can envision your future self in a variety of ways, so you should start by making a list of the experiences you wish to experiment and achieve in the next years and classifying them according to their pertinence, from there, you will need to set steps to accomplish them.
If becoming an fractional executive or independent advisor is an option that you wish to explore, contact us! At BlueQuo, we will guide you through this path!