What Older Job Seekers Should Know About Resumes

Design Rules are Really Not Different for Workers Over 50

May 25, 2009 Deborah S. Hildebrand

Whether a job seeker is 25 or 50, designing a good resume has more to do with the content and format than the age of the candidate.

A lot of the career information available out there regarding how to create a resume or look for a job seems to differentiate between being under 50 years of age and being older. Rather interesting considering that the law prohibits discriminate in any job-related transaction -- hiring, firing, training, promotion – against those who are 40 and over. Does this ten-year gap signal that 50 is the new 40? And might there come a time, somewhere in the future, when 60 becomes the baseline?

For most workers, nothing special happens once they reach the magic age of 50 except perhaps a little more gray hair, and this errant belief held by too many employers that somehow people change and become too old to be able to work. Try telling that to newswoman Barbara Walters, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, Proctor and Gamble leader A.G. Lafley or any number of other business people, politicians and celebrities who are part of the silver set.

Whether job seekers are over 50 or under, are looking to buy a business, run a business or just help a business be successful, it is all about skill and competence. It is just a matter of selling a potential employer on this fact.

Resumes Need to be Succinct and to the Point

One of the fundamental factors about all resumes, regardless of the job seeker’s age, is that they need to contain all the important details in as concise a manner as humanly possible without using 8-pt. font and itty-bitty margins. This means that learning to write a good, simple and descriptive sentence to describe work experience is vital.

It is also important for job seekers to keep in mind the purpose of their resume is to sell their skills to potential employers, not to elaborate on every detail of every moment of their work life. The best way to do this is to start out by identifying the skill sets required either based on a specific job posting or the job seeker’s knowledge of the industry/position and then develop bullet points based on this information.

Another aspect of resume writing that is important for all job seekers to keep in mind is the various sections they may decide to include in their resume such as headline, education, and achievements. Writing the same high quality sentences for these sections will continue to add to the value of the resume.

Using a Functional Instead of a Chronological Resume

For those who don’t already know this, there are two types of resumes: functional and chronological.

Chronological resumes are the standard. They do exactly what their name indicates. They lay out work history, responsibilities, and accomplishments in date order, by employer, from most recent experience to the oldest.

Functional resumes, on the other hand, emphasize specific skills over job duties and employment dates by laying out responsibilities and accomplishments according to functional areas such as communication, project management, and leadership. Which functional areas a job seeker chooses are incumbent on their own personal strengths as well as those that are most applicable to the job they seek.

The benefit of using a functional resume over a chronological one is it enables older job seekers to control the length of their resume better. Since older job seekers tend to have more job experience, a resume can get lengthy – that is why resume experts generally suggest limiting resumes to the prior ten years of job experience.

However, it is important to keep in mind that because chronological resumes are the norm, the use of a functional resume can sometimes raise a red flag to employers. Obviously if a job seeker is using this format, there must be a reason – to cover up job hopping, unrelated job experience or extensive job experience. Read that as covering up his age.

The fact of the matter is that a quality resume is a quality resume regardless of the age of the candidate. And designing one that focuses on required skills and experience will trump any poorly written resume.

The copyright of the article What Older Job Seekers Should Know About Resumes in Career Advice is owned by Deborah S. Hildebrand. Permission to republish What Older Job Seekers Should Know About Resumes in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.