Zero Interviews at 55: Saved by a Small Biz to Beat AI Rejection

After being made redundant at 55 I took a few months off to re-evaluate my life and deal with a few unexpected curved balls that came my way. By the end of 2025, it was time to get my head back in the game and test the job market. I sent my CV everywhere - accounting firms, even supermarket stock roles. Crickets. Not a single interview, things were looking bleak for a while!

Mark and I now run Collab365, a small outfit that helps Microsoft 365 pros get their setups running smoothly without the corporate bloat. It's a lean operation, just us punching way above our weight.

But back when I joined the picture in 2009, it was even smaller: Collaboris, Mark's first venture, needed part-time accounting help. I'd come from bigger gigs - management accounting at Tetley, Asda, and Farnell Components, where I ran UK finance for a chunk of the business, handling planning, budgeting, forecasting, reporting, the lot.

That specialist world suited me fine until around 2005, when life piled on. I was at Farnell, deep in spreadsheets and forecasts, when our daughters Hannah and Katie came along. Mark was working away on contracts, traveling constantly, so it was me solo: full-time work, two tiny kids shuttled to nursery from dawn till dusk. Those few years were probably the hardest, absolute hardest part of my life. I had two young children at home, still trying to work full time, spinning too many plates at that point. It was just really hard - exhaustion that hit like a brick wall every night, no margin for error, and the nagging doubt that, despite my best efforts, I was actually failing them all.

I cut back to part-time from working home to claw back some sanity. Joined Collaboris that way, balancing books on clunky spreadsheets while the kids napped. Then the delinquent dog Charlie joined our family and wrecked my routine, barking through business calls, but we adapted. Collaboris was ramping up by then, so I absorbed everything: admin, customer queries, product demos, marketing videos, user guides. In the mornings before the first few demos, I'd be panicking by the bathroom, my heart racing, convinced I'd freeze. But small business doesn't wait for you to catch up - you jump in, figure it out, or it sinks.

Over time, that terror flipped to something I actually enjoyed. Accounts stayed my core, but I handled technical support chats, scripted videos that explained tricky migrations in plain English, even troubleshot access issues for users who'd paid good money. We'd get emails like "My team's stuck - help," and I'd dig in, no ego about not being the "expert." I didn't realise at the time, but it built this quiet resilience in me. Mark and I would debate fixes over kitchen-table dinners, him pushing the tech edges, me grounding it in what customers actually needed. We kept a human conductor in the loop for every AI tool we tried, making sure it amplified us, not replaced the judgment.

Fast forward, and isolation crept in from years of home office grind. The mental toll was real - cabin fever, staring at the same walls and lack of contact with the outside world began to take over. So when I got the opportunity for a bit of a break in early 2025, I grabbed it with both hands! I volunteered at Weston Park working with the garden team, digging plots, deadheading flower borders and chatting with strangers under the sun. I loved it; I'm an outdoors type anyway, with an allotment in the back garden for veg and obsessing about my resident hedgehog. But health threw curveballs: I needed cataract surgery and Mum needed support. I finally felt ready to re-enter the workforce late in 2025, a fully trained management accountant with decades of varied experience.

That's when the rejections hit like a slap. I submitted dozens of applications. However, my CV screamed "jack of all trades" - it was all muddled up with accounts, ops, customer-facing, and content creation. I have so much experience, but none of it seemed to fit in to current roles. Maybe my age was working against me. Stats back this up: UK over-50s unemployment rose 33% in a year post-2020 per Rest Less analysis of ONS data, with AI screeners rejecting over 75% of resumes before a human sees them. Finance and admin roles face high automation risk - McKinsey estimates up to 57% of finance work hours are automatable. Supermarkets? They use the same bots, spotting gaps in your 20-year-old quals before a human blinks. I felt invisible, like the system decided I was done.

Then Fraser and Jon, key personnel at Collab365, headed out. Mark looked at me across the table: "I need you" so I jumped back in, grateful for an opportunity to get out of the job market. The emotional ups and downs working with your spouse are not to be underestimated - highs of nailing a launch together, strains when deadlines bite. Now I juggle finances, support tickets that resolve in minutes thanks to our AI pipelines, and strategic content that pulls in M365 pros worried about their own futures. Small but perfectly formed, as Mark says.

Katie's a receptionist now, fielding calls, scheduling appointments , however her role is a prime AI target. Tools like voice agents are predicted to resolve 80% of customer service issues by 2029, per Gartner, routing queries flawlessly. Hannah's navigating an early career in IT, and we lie awake wondering how they both will fare with AI lurking in the background ready to upset specialist roles. Universities continue to churn out narrow experts while companies crave adapters. The World Economic Forum predicts 85 million jobs displaced by 2025, but 97 million new ones will be created - mostly hybrid generalists who can pivot fast.

My path proves it. A specialist at 35, generalist by necessity at 50, thriving again at 55 because small business forced versatility. I'm now spinning more plates than ever before; controlling an orchestrated chaos thanks in no small part to AI.

What unexpected role have you picked up that ended up saving your career?