Strike a Balance: Present Experience While Remaining Competitive

Dear Sam: I'm in trouble and cannot figure out a way to prepare my résumé to show 50+ years’ experience without scaring potential employers. Is there any way to make this more palatable? I MUST work to supplement my income. My immediate concern is that I want to apply for a legal job and my legal experience is the first job I held back in 1958. HELP! – Marie

Dear Marie: I have never presented 50 years of experience on a résumé for any client…that’s just not a wise choice. Doing so would present you as overqualified, potentially too expensive, and of course, would have employers wondering how much longer you really wanted to or could work. When deciding how much experience to present, take your cue from the job postings you are interested in. Do any of them call for 50 years of experience? As this will never be the case, I’d recommend presenting the standard 10-15 years of experience with highlights from your early positions in the legal field placed in the summary and a career highlights section. I start to really question placing experience on a résumé when I get back to the 1980’s. As you don’t want to unnecessarily age your candidacy, you have to make sure including experience past that 15-year benchmark is actually adding value to your candidacy. There are a number of strategies you can employ as a seasoned professional to avoid aging your candidacy, while minimizing potentially disqualifying factors that you may or may not have considered.

Include only the relevant amount of experience - When reviewing your career, remember hiring managers are much more interested in what you have done recently, so including information from 20 or 30 years ago will likely do more harm than good. Be sure to focus on the last 10 or so years of your career, particularly if you are applying for a position that does not necessitate more experience. There are always exceptions of course. If you are a senior executive it is likely the hiring manager will be looking for a seasoned candidate expected to have 20+ years of experience. The key is to present the amount of experience that is relevant to your current career interests and pursuits.

Organize your information carefully - Prioritize your content according to what information adds the most value to your candidacy, ensuring the most important information is placed on the top half of page one, leaving supporting details to fill the remainder of your résumé. If, as you mentioned, you have related experience from 50 years ago; remember that this will likely not benefit your candidacy as much as you would think as it is just too dated. In this case, present only highlights of that experience upfront, and then in the professional experience section, add a byline simply stating you have additional experience in the legal field with ABC Employer. The key to a byline is typically not to date that experience, the fact you have broken the format is a good way to hide that certain information isn’t included.

Don't date your education if it ages you - As for your education, which can immediately date a candidate when listed with the year of graduation, try omitting the year to again avoid aging your candidacy. While some feel omitting the year of graduation can be seen as a red flag indicating the information may be false, it is often a chance worth taking to curtail aging your candidacy. I work with a lot of clients that do not have a degree and make the mistake of placing high school information or partially completed degree programs on their résumé. Typically this information does nothing but detract from someone's candidacy while reinforcing the lack of a degree; if this is the case, omit the education section entirely.

Include training and current skills - Another vitally important component of a résumé for a seasoned professional is a training section. This tells the hiring manager that despite being in the workforce and possibly the same type of position for 20 or 30 years, you have continued to develop yourself professionally. Include any relevant / recent classes, workshops, or seminars you have attended, this tells the hiring manager you have continued to learn new and current skills. Pay particular attention to communicating you have current technical skills.

Update jargon and outdated job titles - You will also want to make sure the jargon used within your résumé is up-to-date with today's vernacular. Antiquated terms and even job titles can serve to immediately age a candidate. Take some time to review job descriptions to be sure your résumé speaks the language of today's hiring manager, being sure to eliminate terms that have become obsolete in today's job market. Review your job titles to be sure they are not detracting from your candidacy, possible modifying your titles to ensure use of today's vocabulary.

Create an engaging design – Just as important as your content, is the design of your résumé. To better engage your target market, update the design of your résumé. Be sure you are not using a standard template which will blend into the crowd of competitors who also chose to use a template. Remember, a unique, appropriate design can extend the length of the 7-10 second screening process.

Communicate your compensation requirements - Another problem for senior professionals is hiring managers often assume you are going to be seeking higher compensation than less seasoned professionals. If this is not the case you may want to address this in your cover letter to attempt to thwart this assumption. Whether in written or verbal communication, focus the hiring manager's attention on what you now want to make instead of what you have made in the past.

Try to secure a face to face meeting - If possible, push for a face to face meeting in addition to submitting your résumé. Résumés for seniors have a way of ruling them out rather than opening up the possibility of an interview. Use your résumé and your face to face meeting to sell your strengths, your work ethic, and interpersonal relationship skills. These are likely areas that you have proven during your career and are values shared by most employers.