Losing a job in your fifties can feel like standing at the bottom of a steep hill. Employers may see gray hair before they see experience, and the longer someone stays out of work, the harder the climb tends to become. But not every older jobseeker faces the same slope. Some have skills and confidence that open doors quickly, while others struggle to get noticed at all.
A study published in Applied Psychology set out to map these differences among people aged 45 and older who were looking for work. The researchers wanted to know whether distinct types of jobseekers exist within this group, how each type searches for work, and which type actually lands a job.
The question behind the research
Nicolas Bazine of NEOMA Business School in France, working with colleagues from several French universities, started from a gap in existing research. Most studies of employability treat it as a single sliding scale, measuring how one factor relates to another on average across everyone. That approach can miss the possibility that older jobseekers cluster into separate subgroups, each with its own mix of strengths and challenges.
The team focused on two ingredients of employability. The first is what researchers call human capital: the actual skills, competencies, and career resources a person has built up over a working life. The second is perceived employability, meaning a person’s own belief about how easily they could find a suitable job given their qualifications and the state of the job market. A person can be high on one and low on the other, so the researchers wanted to see how these two pieces combine within individuals.
The study also matters because of who it looks at. In France, the share of jobseekers over 50 rose from 16 percent in 2008 to 27 percent in 2024, and roughly one in three older workers has experienced at least one spell of unemployment late in their career. The authors chose 45 as their cutoff, describing it as a practical threshold rather than a strict line, since research points to gradual biological and psychological shifts around that age.
How the study worked
The researchers surveyed 1,026 unemployed people aged 45 and older, recruited through an online panel company in France. They collected data at two points in time, first in July 2024 and again in April 2025, roughly nine months apart. That interval matters because it is often the typical window for re-employment, letting the team link what people reported at the start to what happened to them later.
At the first survey, participants rated their skills and career resources, their sense of how employable they were, their perceived health, and the strategies they used to look for work. The team measured four search styles. An intense search means devoting lots of time and activity to the hunt. A haphazard search is a trial-and-error approach with no clear plan, switching tactics randomly. An exploratory search keeps options open and gathers information widely from friends, family, and former colleagues. A focused search zeroes in on carefully chosen employers and roles that match a person’s skills and goals.
To find hidden subgroups, the researchers used a method called latent profile analysis. Rather than assuming everyone falls on one line, this technique sorts people into clusters based on how their scores hang together. Nine months later, the team recorded two outcomes: how many job interviews participants had received, and whether they had found a job. About 590 people responded to the second survey.
Three kinds of older jobseekers
The analysis pointed to three distinct profiles. The largest, covering about 64 percent of the sample, the researchers labeled “typical.” These people had a moderate level of both skills and confidence: enough to re-enter work, but not enough to stand out easily to employers.
A second, much smaller group of about 5 percent was labeled “well-equipped.” These individuals scored high on both employability measures, and their sense of being desirable in the job market was especially strong. The third group, roughly 31 percent, was labeled “at risk.” They scored low on both skills and confidence, putting them in danger of longer spells without work.
The profiles differed in how they searched. The at-risk group stood out for using more haphazard, unplanned searching and less of the intense, exploratory, and focused approaches that research links to better outcomes. This matched what the authors expected: people who see few opportunities and doubt their own resources may struggle to set clear goals and plan their search. The well-equipped group, by contrast, showed the highest use of focused searching, concentrating their effort on specific roles that fit their skills.
A surprising twist in the results
The most unexpected finding involved interviews and offers. The well-equipped group was the most likely to be employed by the second survey, followed by the typical group, with the at-risk group least likely. That part fit the researchers’ predictions.
But the well-equipped group reported the fewest job interviews of all three profiles. At first glance that seems backward. The authors interpret it through the focused search style: by targeting a narrow set of well-matched positions rather than applying broadly, these jobseekers went to fewer interviews yet converted more of their effort into actual employment.
This pattern led the researchers to argue that sheer volume of activity does not guarantee success. The at-risk group searched a lot but landed few jobs, which the authors describe as a mismatch between how much effort people put in and how well-aimed that effort was. They suggest that “informed selectivity,” focusing resources on fewer but better-aligned opportunities, may work better than casting the widest possible net, especially for older jobseekers who face age stereotypes.
What shapes which group you land in
The team also examined what predicted a person’s profile. Two factors stood out. People who rated their own health more favorably were more likely to belong to the well-equipped group, while those who had been unemployed longer were more likely to fall into the at-risk group. This fits earlier research suggesting that extended time out of work can erode skills, weaken professional networks, and dent confidence.
Sex also played a role: men were more likely than women to belong to the at-risk group. More surprising was what did not matter. Neither age nor education level was linked to which profile a person fell into. The authors suggest that among older jobseekers, formal qualifications earned years ago may carry less weight than up-to-date skills, recent experience, and current circumstances like health and time spent unemployed.
Practical takeaways and limits
For career counselors and employment services, the researchers draw a clear lesson: one-size-fits-all support may not serve older jobseekers well. They suggest tailoring help to each profile, with particular attention to the at-risk group, who might benefit from support managing health issues, clarifying career goals, and building targeted, high-quality applications rather than simply applying to more openings.
Several caveats deserve attention. All the measures were self-reported, which can distort results. The study looked at job-search strategies at only one moment, so it cannot track how people shift approaches over time or move between profiles as their unemployment lengthens. The sample came from a single country, France, with its own labor policies, and was recruited through an online panel rather than public employment offices, so the findings may not transfer neatly to other settings. The authors also note this is among the first studies to identify employability profiles among older jobseekers, so the results offer a starting point that other research will need to confirm.
What the study offers is evidence that older jobseekers are not a single crowd facing the same odds. They arrive at unemployment with different resources, search in different ways, and end up in different places, and understanding those differences may be the first step toward helping more of them back to work.
