February, 1999

IN THE NEW ECONOMY, THE SKILLS THAT COUNT WITH AGE COUNT FOR LESS AND LESS. SUDDENLY, 40 IS STARTING TO LOOK AND FEEL OLD.

AMERICA IS NO PLACE TO AGE GRACEFULLY
By Nina Munk

OF COURSE, basketball players, dancers, and fashion models are finished young; mathematicians and chess players peak early too. So do construction workers and coal miners. Once you're 55, it's almost impossible to find a job in business. But a new trend is emerging: in corporate America, 40 is starting to look and feel old.

What this change has done above all is upset the expected career paths of boomers. Increasingly, fortysomethings who have followed a good, steady career path find themselves competing with thirtysomethings on the fast track. "Imagine you're looking to hire someone,and you've got this 32-year-old fast-tracker and a normal 42-year-old manager in the same position," says Neal Lenarsky, who runs his own career-management firm, Strategic Transitions, based in Woodland Hills, Calif. "It makes you wonder. You start to say, 'Why has this 42-year-old not made it to the next level?" The next level! Suddenly, that good, steady career path looks dangerous, full of thorns and briars.