Resumes for workers of a certain age

If you’ve become a worker of “a certain age,” you have things to consider for job search that didn’t apply when you were younger. One of the most fundamental challenges is what to put on your resume.

In recent columns I provided a checklist for critiquing your own resume, and tips for strategizing specific resume sections for more impact. Today I’ll round out the resume conversation by looking at three issues specific to workers at or beyond mid-career.

Too much information. At this stage of your career, you’ve got a lot to tell potential employers. Unfortunately, not all of it is relevant. Your challenge is to figure out which points are most important, and then to present the information in a clear but succinct way.

Here are some steps to help with the process.

1. Focus your job search. This will help you focus your resume – which is the key to identifying which information to include.

2. Rely less on your resume. While resumes are critical job search tools, person-to-person contacts are even more critical. The impulse to tell everything on the resume is sometimes a symptom of not identifying other outlets for the information.

3. Make use of addenda or other supporting materials. Diverting long lists or in-depth detail to a separate document can free up resume space. Logical topics for this strategy include publications, indepth descriptions of projects, lengthy lists of technical skills, etc.

Too little information. People who absorbed the “no boasting” rule as youngsters are prone to using a just-the-facts resume aesthetic. On the one hand, this avoids overwhelming the reader, so that’s good. But since there are no points given for underwhelming either, this is a mistake that needs correcting. Some tips to help:

1. Take credit for what you did. It’s fine to mention a team or co-leader, but not to the exclusion of noting your own contributions. If you get stuck on the wording, try this: “Individual contributions as part of the ___ team included…”

2. Give scope. Identifying yourself as a project leader for the new product rollout is good – but was it regional, national or international? Or perhaps it was a pilot project? You can see how each of those scenarios would interest employers for different reasons.

3. Provide results, but don’t get caught in the metrics game. Metrics – which is basically another word for measures – are an important tool for conveying information. But without context, they’re just numbers. Your resume should tell a story, not mimic a spreadsheet.

Too many rules. Sometimes I have to remind my boomer clients that they are the generation of the 60s. You know – rule-breakers, protesters, draft card burners. You may not have participated or even identified with those activities but it’s still helpful to remember: Not all rules make sense. When it comes to resumes, almost no rules make sense. Many are just guidelines, others are tales carried from a different era.

In particular, mid-career/ post-50 year-olds need to question these dictums:

1. Length. Whenever you hear someone pronounce that no resume should exceed two pages, please put your fingers in your ears until the person goes away. That’s not very respectful, but neither is making a blanket rule about resume length without regard to one’s audience, message or work experiences.

Here’s a better guideline: Everything on a resume should speak to the targeted employer group while answering the fundamental question: Does it help the reader to know this? Anything that can’t meet that criteria should probably go; if the resume is still longer than two pages, just make sure it’s a navigable document with key information easy to find.

2. Dates. Keep them? Toss them? Cut out everything that’s more than 10 years old? The answers to the date question won’t be the same for each circumstance, but I can generally advise not tossing information that supports your job goal, even if it happened more than 10 years ago.

3. Style. There are resume conventions that we’re all used to, but that doesn’t mean your document can’t veer off the beaten path. Again, consider your audience and the message you’re trying to send. Then go ahead and try a different style if you think it’s good strategy – whether that means using first-person pronouns, addressing the reader directly, dropping a graph onto the page or just monkeying around with lines and bullets.

That’s enough for now; if you’d like more on resume writing, check the newspaper’s archives for last month’s columns on strategic resume sections and critiquing your document. Happy writing!