There’s been a trend over the last 40 years of people working longer, delaying retirement or retiring and then coming back to work for a while. 

Since the mid-1980s, labor-force participation has nearly doubled for people 65 and up. It’s also risen for workers in their 50s. And when these folks try to find a new job or switch jobs, it isn’t easy.

Lots of older workers are itching to make a move, said Carly Roszkowski at AARP. 

The group’s latest survey found, “24% of workers 50 and older planning to make a job change this year, higher than we’ve seen in a decade,” said Roszkowski.

But 65% of them haven’t done anything recently to prepare.

“These older workers might not have made a job change in 10, 15 years,” she said.

In this brave new world of job hunting, said Roszkowski, the first step is to make sure your updated resume “can get through some of the tracking systems or bots that organizations are using.”

Other tips include using digital addresses — email, professional websites, LinkedIn; leaving out decades-old graduation dates and job experience. 

And here’s some old-school advice from Peter Cappelli at the Wharton School. 

“Try to write a letter to somebody or find somebody you know, so that you can get around all these people applying through job boards,” he said.

Network your friends, former co-workers, anyone with a personal connection.