This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Your Value Doesn’t Expire: Career Reinvention Over 40 with Loren Greiff | 344

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

What happens when decades of experience get labeled as “overqualified”? When the wisdom, grit, and perspective you’ve earned suddenly turn into workplace liabilities? Loren Greiff knows this story all too well — and she’s rewriting it. After 30 years in corporate leadership, Loren was told she was “too real” and put on a performance improvement plan. Instead of shrinking, she built a movement: helping women over 40 reclaim their careers, disrupt ageist hiring practices, and lead with relevance, purpose, and unapologetic value. We dig into: What “overqualified” really means (spoiler: it’s fear-based nonsense) How to frame your experience as future-focused instead of a professional obituary Why women are launching businesses, shifting careers, and embracing bolder purpose in their 40s, 50s, and 60s How to overcome the “too expensive” or “not tech savvy” labels Tactical strategies to thrive in today’s hidden job market If you’ve ever been told you’re too much or felt sidelined by ageism, this episode will remind you: your value doesn’t expire, your merit doesn’t have a shelf life, and your best work may still be ahead of you. Connect with Loren: Website: www.portfoliorocket.com  IG: https://www.instagram.com/portfoliorocket/ LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorengreiff/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/career-blast-in-a-half/id1670977528 Related Podcast Episodes 15 Lies Women Are Told At Work with Bonnie Hammer | 330 The 3 N’s - Negotiation, Networking & No with Kathryn Valentine | 327 How to Turn Job Seeking into Job Shopping with Madeline Mann | 318 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. www.ca. YMX. I'm Nicole Khalil, your host of the This is Woman's Work podcast.

We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing women's work in the world today. From boardrooms to studios, kitchens to coating dens, from your street all the way to Wall Street, we explore the multifaceted experiences of today's woman, which, let's face it, is no small task. In this work, as in most work, we learn by doing, by observing,

by failing, and by growing. We learn through experience. And yet in today's workplace, in the hiring, the promotions, the power structures, and the hierarchies, experience is often seen as an obstacle instead of an asset. Wisdom is undervalued. Merit gets quickly forgotten in the face. of something newer or cheaper.

I mean, people claim to value merit above all else. They say experience matters. We preach the importance of high standards, and yet the moment someone has too much of it, they're told they're overqualified or too expensive or quietly passed over. It's strange, isn't it? All that accumulated merit, the wisdom, the seasoning,

the perspective, somehow gets turned into a liability, which is alarming on its own, but factor in some pretty solid data that shows, as women are getting older, they're also getting bolder. And we find ourselves in a bit of a pickle. Women are changing careers and launching businesses in their 40s and their 50s and their 60s, not just in their 20s and 30s. They're also walking away from marriages that no longer serve them in their 50s and beyond, but that's another topic for another day. And none of it is because they've lost something, but because they finally found something. themselves. And still, they're facing the reality of their merit, talent, and experience being

overlooked in favor of younger, cheaper, unproven options in the workplace. So we're going to talk all about that with today's guest, Lauren Greif, and she knows this all too well. After 30 years in corporate leadership, she was put on a performance improvement plan for being too real. Since then, she's committed her life to democratizing the hiring process for job seekers over 40. helping people build careers that work for them for the next five to 20 years. Host of the Career Blast and a Half podcast, Lauren, is not just preaching change. She's leading it. So, Lauren, before I move into any questions about tactics or strategies,

I'd love to start by having you share what you're hearing from women over the age of 40 about the challenges they face in the workplace, about this idea of being overqualified, or even your personal experience of being too real or too much. Absolutely. And I love the introduction that you did because you set the stage perfectly. How I say it is a little different from how you say it, right?

What we say is that experience is valued, right? But in truth, the value that you bring can't just be left. on its own as experience. There's a big difference between having experience and being relevant. And so in today's world,

they don't care what you've accumulated. They care what you're going to impact and move next, now and next, right? And so this whole idea of more time equals added value is actually not a relevant or meaningfully equation in today's hiring world. And so we can talk about the myths and the placeholder that overqualified really stands for. It's an umbrella for a myriad of fears.

First is overqualified means you could be a flight risk, right? You have way too much, quote unquote, experience. So why are you applying for this job? And this happens all the time. I hear this from women all the time. Well, you know, I don't need to make that much money. I'll just go and apply for this role that may be a couple layers down. And what ends up happening is they've kind of set themselves up.

There's like this invisible boomy trap that's going on. Because you think, oh, well, I could just nail that because I have all the qualifications. And what they're thinking is, well, yeah, you're going to be bored. you're not going to want to stay for an extended period of time. We're not going to be able to, you know, as much as you think this works, it's not working for us because it can come across as I just need a job. And there's no alignment between what it really is that you're up to versus a bunch of keywords. So that's the first one, the flight risk.

The second one is you're overqualified because we think you're too expensive. And so when we think you're too expensive, the antidote to that isn't to drop your price. It's to identify the bigger areas of your value by way of showing specific business impact from what to what. Please do not say, I improve sales. 2% versus 200%. I need a benchmark. And to the best of your ability, put some dollars around that.

If you're able to increase revenue by, let's just say, $2 million, and you're $600,000 or $300,000, hell yeah, all day long I want to bring you in. So part of this is overcoming isn't to make yourself smaller women. it's really to own the impact that you've had. And the good news is, despite what you may think,

there's always a metric. So that is business currency. Using generalities like, you know, I'm a proven leader, heard it too many times. So that's just a talk track or an old narrative that also sniffs you out as somebody who really doesn't know the impact that you have

or the value that you bring. Overqualified is also the last one that's really annoying is it's really the fear that you're not tech savvy. And I hate this because it really says we don't think that you're going to be innovative. Despite the fact,

that you've been through, you know, the pandemic and remote work and learning all these other things. I mean, in many cases, a lot of our clients, you know, didn't even have a laptop, a desktop. But this isn't about hiding your age. It's really about being able to bypass or overcome a lot of the perceptions. So everyone will, everyone will experience some level of ageism, because sadly, the system is saturated with a lot of these prehistoric ideas. And so the more relevant you are, the more seed planting you start putting in the ground that start countering that old idea. Yeah, I appreciate you decoding this term overqualified, right?

And it makes perfect sense. Yes, it's flight risk. It's also, you know, and sometimes people, I think, look at career opportunities and they're like, it might take a few years to get great at this job. And if you're retiring in 10 years, then I'm going to have to replace you. Like, you know, there's this flight risk, but also length of time risk. The too expensive, you handled that beautifully tech savvy. I think that that is unconsciously on everybody's mind. And I like that you provided a balance because I came in a little hot in my intro of like merit and experience. And I

also think that there are relevancy issues that we need to be mindful of or that we need to be able to talk ourselves through. And I also think just like the example of the sort of flimsy things we say, I'm hardworking or I improve sales or whatever, to be able to back that up with the metrics, but also the how you do it, right, to be able to explain what it is that you do or that you bring the table that makes that happen or that people are willing to invest in. So all of that to say, where do you position your experience in a way that, I don't know, lands for the other person hearing it? There's a couple of things I really want to emphasize.

And these are subtle but powerful. So the first is look at your LinkedIn profile, look at your resume. probably 90 plus percent of it is written in past tense. I'm going to tell you that you're writing your professional obituary. You're telling people that your best years are done, right? I led this. I sold that. I launched.

I invigorated. I sold. I grew. Right? Now I think your best days are not only over. but that you're not positioning me, my company, my team for the future. So we call them tomorrow stories. We need to be able to bank it off of this,

but also be able to bridge it into tomorrow and whatever happens thereafter. This is the love story about the future of marketing, the future of fintech, the future of manufacturing. As somebody who is going to be leading, it's incumbent within your skill set that you have vision. And so I think if your vision is only looking from the now backwards, it doesn't instill a lot of confidence that you are in a position to lead me to the next and the future. If you focus just on yesterday, it's suggesting, you know, that tomorrow will be mediocre. And so there's a lot of importance in just that one reframe.

Oh, it's a small tweak with a huge impact and it makes perfect sense. I wonder with the assumption about tech saviness, is your advice for people to like disprove it, share all the ways you are in fact tech savvy or all of the ways that you've learned and used technology or is it to redirect to like, for example, in my case, I'm not very tech savvy. truly. But I'm pretty people savvy. What would be the advice there if we know that the person we're talking to for any opportunity might have that assumption that would be working against us? The first is, please, please, for the love of God, please, like, show up on LinkedIn. I cannot tell you that what a strong, I mean, 97% of Fortune 500 CEOs and their teams are busy plucking from LinkedIn, right?

It is a, you do not need to say open to work. Everybody is open to work on LinkedIn. Passive, active, you do not need to. My point is that footprint and what that profile does is the first go-to. one-stop shop can grease the skids and share a lot of information that they can learn an effort to want to get to know you and learn more about you. Your resume, which is very old school, and I'm not saying you don't need one. Yes, you do need one. But the eyeballs that are going to land on your resume as compared to a LinkedIn profile are incomparable. No way. And so you need

an updated headshot, you need a really strong converting banner, please, again, do not just put a skyscraper, you know, a cityscape or something like that. That could easily tell me you're a tour guide in that city or if you use a mountain scenery, like you're off on a vacation and you're hiking. So you really want to address everything on LinkedIn as how you were going to reach and talk to your audience with their pain points and also, of course, your wins. That's the baseline. You must have that presence. You must.

The next level up from that is to be sharing thought leadership content that speaks to your expertise. It's not an overnight thing. I need you to know that all of you, right? Content is a really good game. and you don't need to be an excellent writer or anything you could always start with commenting. But you want to curate that feed

to reach your audience, people within your industry, other people who are thought leaders, and doing that, start spitering out your reach and says, hey, you're that person that knows something. You're that person who's confident

to be able to speak on that topic. You're somebody who also is, you know, up to speed on the latest changes or or tech advens or something like that. So just by doing that, it starts to change that perception. Right. Now, the final, the best thing that you can do is share all the things that you are doing by way of tech. Take people on your tech journey.

There's hundreds of AI classes and certification. LinkedIn learning. Now, I don't want you to just stop short and say, I got this certification. Now I want to know, okay, so why did you do this? And how will it impact said industry, said company? How will this make you a stronger leader? Tell me something that you learned there.

Because if you just throw the certification up, I'm not going to be able to mind read for that. Right. So that is a very potent and simple way of showing that you are agile, continuously learning. And if you're learning about tech, you can have a double whammy there, right? So that's really, those are kind of the three tiers. Summer's here, and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost?

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Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. Love it. All great advice. Again, logical and reinforces the message that I think we all want to be sending, that we might unconsciously not be. So I guess my next question is around based on, you know, the work that you do,

why do you see that women are changing career, starting businesses, making these big life changes later in life? What are you hearing? What's the reasoning behind it? Well, I'm going to address this for the women audience, but I also want to say men are not exempt. Mm-hmm. And so this is a crazy finding. I actually learned about it through this book that I read a couple of years back called Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks. And it identifies that our brains at a certain point in time change to the degree that without getting too geeky and scientific, they move away from the ladder, right?

climb, climb, climb, climb, promotion, increase my compensation. Like, for some reason, our brains, it deadens out. It hits this almost like imaginary stop sign and says, I just can't do this anymore. And once we make that shift, usually around 40s, early 40s or so, then we start caring more about purpose.

Why am I really doing this anyway? I don't understand. Like, I'm not skipping to work on Mondays. I am like wondering when the next weekend is coming. And you find yourself all these little clues start showing up over and over and over again. You're apathetic at work. You know, even if you were paid more, you wouldn't want to stay because it's kind of either been there, done, that or it's the politics or it's something else. And so when we are with our clients,

the very, very, very first thing that we do is strip away a lot of the head noise. I am a this, I am a that. And we get underneath this very, very important and literally catalystic trigger and we understand what contribution they want to bring to X and what is the impact of that contribution. Now, it sounds very easy because people are like, I want to generate more sales or I want to do this, that's just on the surface level. So we really need to understand some of the underlying motivators. I'll share my why because it was not an easy thing,

but it can work as an example to demonstrate this contribution and the impact of it. So my contribution, the first piece, is I am on a mission to end career victimization. Like that is come hell or high water. I talk about it all day long. I post about it. I am it. I am an embodiment of that on multiple levels. The impact of that, accelerate, elevate, and celebrate one executive over 40 at a time.

So this stealth statement serves as like the mojo. It's intrinsic in you. I could get like all like goose pimply about it because honestly, when I see, those lights go on and when our clients own it for themselves, 99% of all the other things start falling into place because it becomes a filters. If that company doesn't want that contribution or doesn't need that contribution, we want to understand, is that contribution also an expensive problem, an urgent and expensive problem that that company or that audience needs to be solved, right? I know that career victimization is everywhere. Right. Right. If everybody,

if everybody knew how to do this, they do it. So I think it's really important to, to really be able to through that process where that break point is between, I don't really care that much about the, I mean, I care that I have a big title. Yeah, and that's not going away, but the reason why I have it is now more, important than just the place, the marker. It's interesting. I mean, this is all interesting. It's personally interesting to me because I've experienced a similar shift, right? In my 40s, it really became this questioning of, when is enough enough?

What is my actual purpose? What am I trying to accomplish or prove over here? Like, the latter visual was perfect because I was tired. Like, I wasn't interested. on what the next steps we're going to bring or what it was going to take to get there. And it became a lot more about, I'll say purposes,

because I think that there may be evolving, growing purpose in there. And, you know, I certainly don't want to be undervalued. And I definitely have moments when I see people with, you're also a podcast host, so you might relate to this. But like when somebody has a bigger podcast, I have like a competitive moment. or when somebody, you know, says that they're making millions of dollars, there's that, like, oh, could I do that moment too?

And yet I find myself more and more often in the, like, I'm not motivated by that anymore. Maybe for a second or a moment, but not long enough, not sustainable enough for me to want to do anything about it. Like, it is interesting. And I don't want people in their 40s and 50s to be undervalued because now they care more about purpose than, Well, that's, that's, that's the whole thing, right?

They, they can not just coexist. They ideally should be aligned. That's your grand slam. That's what we focus on for each and every client. Because at the end of the day, when they have multiple offers, they're not always going to pick the one that comes with the title or comes with the bigger comp package. they go back and they have to ask themselves many, many, many times,

especially when they know they've come from a toxic culture. They're like never again, right? And that is on many levels a part of purpose. I want to be with people that I can collaborate with, that I genuinely like, that I vibe with. There's nothing wrong with that. doesn't you don't have to make that tradeoff you may make other compromises like a longer commute but you are you have control over what it is that you prioritize and then what it is that you

eventually sign up for yeah tactically strategically strategically you mentioned LinkedIn I think that's a big example of this but for many people it may have been decades since they last interviewed or looked for a position what are some things that we might want to be aware of that have changed dramatically that will make a career search or even just looking at other opportunities a little bit more approachable. Absolutely. So I am a big advocate for the hidden job market, which means jobs that are not posted. I can swear by it, not only for personal experience, but.

from all of our clients who have found a variety of opportunities, changes, you know, things underground, jobs that are not posted. Those are going to come by your relationships, right? Everybody really does have a network. I can't say that they're all, you know, top of mind or, you know, they haven't at your feed. But as you grow in your career, there is no better investment. I don't care what it is that you're doing. I don't care what industry you're in. As you become more senior, those posts and those recruiters are going to get, become a

smaller and smaller portion of how you're eventually going to land. So over-dependency on applicant tracking systems and also expecting recruiters to be the Messiah and come to you and find you all these jobs and, you know, do all the heavy lifting, no more. No recruiter can sit in an interview or, you know, build your network or really get under the hood of even the energy that you're going to be, you know, bringing to that conversation. So you really need to accept that right off the bat because the job market is not ever going back to what we used to know, where people could really level.

the pedigree, the titles, and all the things that previously worked, right? I need to see the proof. I need to know how you've done this, and I need to know exactly, you know, why it was so instrumental. And so you have to tell me those things. I have to, you have to, again, embody that. So that's really important, really important, is your network. A lot of people think that they know.

And I'm not saying that they don't, but you also need to understand that there is a life cycle for how long it takes before somebody is willing to make a referral. So one touch point, two touch points, probably not going to work. Right. Unless you really, really know this person. People who are in decision-making seats refer trusted advisors, not some long-range acquaintance, right? I need to know you if you're going to sit in a seat that also is high paying and let's face it, like my name is on this. So I'm putting myself at risk if I don't know you

enough to be able to refer and recommend you. So careful, please be careful not to burn your network going out of the gate and making an ask. That ask is probably, you know, three or four different touch points down the road, at least. Right. So give, give, give, give, give, show interest, do your homework. On that point, that does jive with what I see to, whereas it's a lot of times the people who refer you in or the connections you have or the people in your network that are being prioritized even heavier today than ever before over degrees or where are you into college or

you know, designations or all of that. The one thing that I worry about is there is some research that shows this puts women and people of color at a disadvantage because, for example, women with children, a lot of times their professional network feels or gets smaller because they don't do the evening or the, you know, weekend or the golf courses or the what have you with care responsibilities, sometimes our networks can be and feel smaller. And also, if it's a little bit about who you know, unless you have the privilege of being growing up with or going to school with or being connected with the right people, that can be hard. So any thoughts or tips there? I think you raise such an important point. Those people, right, ideally in an

ideal circumstance. You're acting as a broker, brokering a relationship from, let's just say, you know, your gym and your college. You're building off of the pockets of people that you know. Other moms, great. They want to meet other people that may have been from a prior job. You want to be doing that. And that is a very different model than just having kind of like this big network. So it's called clustering, right? You're pulling from these different clusters. And it's always coming back to you.

Oh, how do you know, how do you know Nicole? Oh, I know her from, you know, this dance class I used to take. Or, you know, I know her because her kids were in the same soccer, you know, whatever that, whatever that commonality. But you're the middleman. That's a great position to be in. Because naturally, every time you do that, the likelihood and the law of reciprocity says, that's going to happen for you. So you want to create that flywheel. But the other piece that you're raising is that not everyone has the in for that network.

And on some level, I'm not going to say that it's easy, but LinkedIn is a playing field that you can build. those relationships. I mean, if you show up consistently and you build that trust, again, not the first time you're going to reach out and say, I just want to connect because I don't know you, right? I don't know you yet. But if you start doing research and bring something to the table that speaks to a pain point or an idea that you have that you know would be, you know, something that is within their wheelhouse, you're getting, you're getting really warm. Lauren, I could ask you so many more questions. We are out of time.

So I want to make sure on the note of LinkedIn that people can find and follow you there. So it's Lauren Greif on LinkedIn. And we'll put that link as well as the link to her website, portfolio rocket.com and show notes. Lauren, thank you for this conversation today. And listener, if you or someone you care about is 40 and over looking for a career change or a job opportunity

or purpose opportunity, make sure you find and follow Lauren. Lauren, thanks so much. Thank you. All right, friend, if you've ever been told you're overqualified or too much or felt like your experience somehow disqualified you from an opportunity, let this be a reminder that it's not you. It's the system. And also, you have a lot to say about it because your value doesn't expire.

Your merit doesn't have a shelf life. and your best work, your real work, might still be ahead of you. Because as Lauren says, we don't age by living long, we age by living small. And if I know one thing for damn sure, it's this. None of us were put here to live small. So here's to women being bolder, living bigger and getting better with age, and embracing the shit out of it because all of that is woman's work. Thank you.