Bias against recruiting older people for work is a form of brain drain at the pinnacle of wisdom. In the context of an ageing workforce, it affects everyone’s future chances to find work. If we fail to design for older workers as the norm, we fail everybody’s future potential.
Expect to be thrown out of your comfort zone! When learning new skills, do you see difficulties as short-term problems you’ll solve tomorrow, or dead-ends that halt further progress? Pre-empting how to get over the inevitable humps, ahead of the learning curve, could help our future selves to stay the course.
Udacity’s Nanodegree programme developed with tech giants like Google and Facebook reflect the skills they currently need. But don’t automatically assume it’s all about the hard stuff.