In today’s job market, age doesn’t seem to be a virtue.

If you have a strong work ethic, there’s a comfort in knowing you’ll take any job and do what ever it takes to support yourself and your family. But, for 50-plus workers, even if they wanted to work at a fast food restaurant, or a grunt job just to get a pay check, their options are limited.

Take Jeff T. from Palm Springs, CA, who is unemployed and is willing to do anything.

“What are 50 somethings supposed to do when they apply for work/jobs and are told they are ‘over qualified’? It seems that we have been told that employers are looking for “experience”, but when they find it, we are pretty much down the road.

“Our only lifeline, extended unemployment benefits, have run out, and with no prospects on the horizon, where do we go? We can not even get a job asking ‘you want fries with that?’”

Jeff is clearly not alone. New statistics show many older workers are remaining jobless longer than ever. But don’t despair, I’m going to offer you some solid tips later in this post from older workers who were able to find jobs they love.

“Once unemployed, older workers tend to be out of work longer than their younger counterparts,” according to an AARP Public Policy Institute report from April.

And the numbers in May revealed even more depressing news.

The average duration of unemployment, basically joblessness between jobs, jumped to 44.2 weeks in May, up from 42.9 weeks in the previous month. And even more disturbing were the long-term jobless numbers. The percentage of 55 and older workers who had been jobless for more than 27 weeks in May jumped to 59.4 percent, from 56.8 percent in April.

So what’s working against older workers?

The fifty-plus crowd faces a number of challenges, says Jennifer Kalita, a consultant who specializes in Baby Boomers and seniors.

“Companies can hire younger workers for less money than the 50 plus professional is used to,” she explains. “Employers fear the propensity for more health complications at this employee’s life stage,” and they are “not as well-versed in tech-speak and processes as younger applicants.”

Another factor hurting older workers is they have a specific set of skills they have honed over the years so the breathe of jobs available to them is limited, notes Jeffrey A. Heath, president of The Landstone Group, an affiliate of recruiting firm MRI. The average 40 year old, he says, will have 14 jobs during their working lives, compared to seven for the average 50 year old.

Jeff can find a little comfort knowing it’s not just him. But realistically, he wants more than jobless company.

“There are many like me who would like to know how to promote ourselves and become a productive member of society again.”

Yes Jeff, there are things you can do.

Here are five strategies from successful job seekers who are 50-plus:

1. Sweat a lot:

Ella Newman, who is over 50 and left her company after a merger, found her dream job within six months in one of the toughest hit industries of all, finance. And the one thing she points to for her success was hard work.

“I had to find something before my benefits ran out,” she explains. “I worked at my search from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week until I found the perfect job.”

She is now senior vice president at Fiduciary Trust Company International in New York.

Her game plan each day was as follows:

*Wake up. Write emails and letters. This includes emails to people she knew or were recommended to her, and notes to people she connected with, even hand-written letters to people she met, especially hiring managers.

*Go on as many appointments as possible, including general networking lunches, informational interviews, as well as real interviews.

*Spend the rest of the day researching employers, jobs.

She even started interviewing before she left her former employer when she realized she’d be leaving.

“You have to make finding a job your full-time job and put all your effort into it if you want to get a job in a reasonable amount of time,” she stressed.

2. Look tech savvy:

The last thing you need is an employer thinking you’re too old to get all the latest and greatest technological advances.

When Bob Dixon, 57, realized there was a chance he was going to lose his job at a semi conductor firm because of business conditions, he started working on creating a website to promote himself and putting together a multimedia resume known as a VisualCV. (See my past column on these resumes here.)

“I needed to feel like I was doing something proactive,” he said.

Dixon, who lives in Windham, NH, said he has gotten contact through the website and hiring managers have been impressed by his cyber resume. He has already gotten many job interviews and actually withdrew himself from consideration for a few jobs he looked likely to get because they weren’t the right fit.

“I want something that involves global sourcing or realigning a supply chain for a company,” explained Dixon, who has significant experience in Asia having worked with manufacturers there in his previous job. “For me it’s not just about getting a job. It’s also about finding a position in a company where all of my experience can contribute to the success and company goals.”

3. Get some help:

Sometimes one of the biggest hurdles for older workers is figuring out what to do next with their careers after they leave a long-time employer. It can create a situation where you’re applying for jobs half-heartedly, and that’s a recipe for job hunting disaster.

Susan Schwab, 56, left her company without a job lined up in September of 2008 because the firm was going through some management changes.

She was at a career and life cross roads wondering if she should take her technology background and pursue jobs in education or healthcare, two industries she had enjoyed in the past.

To figure it all out, she paid about $10,000 for outplacement services at a company called New Directions, and spent hours taking psychological tests such as Meyers Briggs. “It helped me get clarity on what my strengths are and what they’re not,” she noted.

The company also gave her basic job hunting help, including how important it was to network, and getting on social networking sites like LinkedIn. “I hadn’t actively looked for a job since the 1970s,” she explains, adding that jobs had “always fallen in my lap.”

Even though she was now wise to the ways of the Web 2.0 job market, she ended up landing her position the old fashioned way, through an advertisement she saw The Chronicle of Higher Education. “I saw the ad, looked at the requirements, and said, ‘this has my name on it.’”

Schwab is now the associate CIO and executive director of shared services alliance at the University of North Carolina.

4. Use the time wisely:

Richard Hingst, a former Chrysler Corp. environmental staffer who lives in Lapeer, MI, took early retirement from the automaker last November because he saw the handwriting on the wall and has been looking for the right job ever since.

He’s taken employment-training sessions that including things like interviewing skills, and he also expanded his credentials by obtaining additional energy and environmental accreditation.

Hingst, 54, also attended an air and waste trade conference a few months ago where he volunteered to run a seminar. That gave him free access to all the sessions where he could learn more about the industry, and it allowed him to network with potential employers.

Although he’s optimistic he’ll be able to find a good permanent job soon and has gotten some solid leads, he decided to start his own environmental consultancy and is working on projects he hopes will give him the inside line to a full-time position.

“At this point, I have a small pension coming in and my wife works. We can pay the bills but it’s not enough to get ahead,” he explained. “I thought trying consulting would be a way to make a few bucks or lead to something bigger.”

5. Help others:

While career experts are constantly telling job seekers to reach out their networks and ask for help, including job leads, or recommendations, there are benefits to helping others even when you’re struggling to find a job.

Dixon from New Hampshire mentors students and he also give pro bono speeches at universities. He’s always more than willing to help out anyone looking for advice.

In one instance, he helped coach an individual who had been interviewing for eight months and felt his life, his family was falling apart because he could not find work.

And recently he got an email from a man who was laid off from General Motors who found his profile on LinkedIn. “He wanted to talk about some issues I could help him with. I spent several hours on the phone with him over a couple of weeks,” he said. “Now he sends me job postings he comes across that might work for me.”

“People have the whole networking thing backwards,” Dixon stressed. It’s not just about calling someone up because you need help, he added, it’s actually helping others.

“You can be out of work and still help people,” he said.