A Career Coach Warns This Common Mindset Is Sabotaging Job Searches After Age 40

Job searching beyond the age of 40 can be fraught with challenges. Although ageism is heavily frowned upon and even illegal in recruitment, recruiters may still be predisposed to think that an older candidate is too old and too expensive before they utter a single word in an interview. While older candidates might have more experience, bigger networks, and stronger leadership skills than younger applicants, there are still ways they could be making their job search harder than it needs to be. For example, Loren Greiff, an executive career coach who specializes in helping candidates above 40 land jobs, told Business Insider that focusing exclusively on passion is one of the biggest mistakes that haunts this demographic in their search for employment. "When passion leads the narrative, employers often translate it into 'unfocused,' 'expensive,' or 'overqualified,'" says Greiff.

While Statista reports the rate of unemployment among people aged 35 and older is relatively low compared to younger demographics, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the number of unemployed people aged 55 and older who have actively stopped looking for work in at least a month had grown from around 765,000 in December 2024 to 809,000 in December 2025. The growth of this portion of the population illustrates how frustrating the job market has gotten for older workers. However, Greiff believes that some of the experienced workers getting fed up with the application process could see more positive results by shifting their priorities to better suit potential employers.

Job seekers above 40 are often seen as a risk. As much as awareness campaigns and even laws like The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) try to curb this tendency, the harsh reality is that you are much better off navigating ageism than simply ignoring it. Employers have apprehensions about older workers lacking in tech skills and being difficult to coach. Older workers may also be more prone to distractions, since they tend to have a larger set of responsibilities to worry about. These could all be points of concern for a hiring team. "Older workers are evaluated through a lens of cost, immediacy, and risk," Greiff tells Business Insider.  

Moreover, although experience may help you make better decisions than younger workers, the sad reality is that employers may not even want you to make decisions in your role. In fact, they may feel anxious about exactly that notion. Younger workers might be deemed more likely to act like cogs in a wheel and follow instructions, while a passionate candidate with a wealth of experience could be more liable to stir things up in the workplace if they identify an issue with a company's practices. Like it or not, while finding meaning in your work can make you happier, prioritizing this too vocally could be a red flag to recruiters. As Greiff notes, "To employers, this isn't kumbaya. This is serious, and they're looking, in a period of uncertainty, to mitigate as many areas that point to risk as they possibly can."

In a country where Donald Trump's tariffs are impacting the job market and boomers won't even be able to afford living in some states in 10 years, failing to think from the perspective of the employer first can be a massive disservice to yourself.

Even for younger generations, where recruiters do consider passion a priority, what people fail to realize is that they often evaluate the substrate of actual skill and expertise first. Only on top of tangible problem-solving ability does passion begin to make a difference. Moreover, not even employers expect you to be passionate about some roles, and taking a job simply because it's the only one you have on your plate can be a perfectly responsible move, even if you don't wake up every morning looking forward to heading to the office.

However, you do not have to completely set your passion aside while presenting your pitch, either. Greiff mentions that showcasing your passion for a job while showing recruiters how you could effectively alleviate their company's pain points is where the secret sauce lies. If you can show the employers that their company's mission falls completely in line with your personal vision, they may take you more seriously despite potential prejudices. "Once you can articulate that, compensation stops looking like a cost and starts looking like [return on investment]," Grieff mentions. "Suddenly, 'too experienced' turns into 'exactly the edge we need.'"