Purpose, Work, and What Your Residents Still Have to Give with Darren Tompkins

Walk into almost any senior living community and you will find people who ran companies, taught classrooms, and built things for a living, handed an activity calendar and asked to fill the time. At the same moment, the country is running short on experienced workers and cannot find enough of them.

In this episode of From Leads to Leases, Jerry Vinci of CCR Growth sits down with Darren Tompkins, founder and CEO of Vader-Rey Companies, a Texas-based talent and recruiting firm. Darren walked his own mother through assisted living and memory care before losing her to Alzheimer’s during the COVID lockdowns, and he spends his days recruiting the exact people senior living communities have quietly set on a shelf. The conversation covers what actually happens to an older worker when they try to re-enter the workforce, why ageism is measurable and documented, what the talent gap means for the country’s most experienced generation, and why the next great amenity in senior living might not be a thing at all.

The people most communities overlook as a resource are already living down the hall.
70 percent of workers 65 and older say the primary reason they want to work is to stay mentally active, not to earn a paycheck.
Residents who worked by choice past retirement age showed better mental sharpness and lower rates of depression than those who were forced to stop.
A six-page resume with a 40-year work history is not a strength; two pages with a request for more on request is.
An AOL address, a photo from 15 years ago, or a birth year in an email handle will get an older candidate filtered out before anyone reads the resume.
Ageism in hiring is documented and measurable, and nearly 40 percent of the gap disappears when older candidates keep their materials current and stay active in their field.
The knowledge walking out the door with a retiring employee cannot be replaced by a younger hire; it can only be preserved if the organization intentionally captures it first.
A community that identifies what its residents did for a living and builds pathways for mentorship, consulting, or volunteering has a differentiator that no amenity budget can replicate.
Encore careers, not just continued careers, are linked to lower dementia risk; the new challenge matters as much as the continued one.
Philanthropy is a full professional contribution, not a consolation prize; accounting, organizational skills, and networks are as valuable to a nonprofit as a check.