Statistics show that more and more Americans are working longer than ever before—well past the “traditional” retirement age of decades past—and what’s more, Americans are switching careers more frequently than ever, the days of working for a lone employer for 40 or 50 years long over. Combine these two findings and you arrive at a simple conclusion: More people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s are looking to jump from one job to another, and as such they need to craft compelling resumes that will enable them to compete with younger jobseekers.
What Sets Fiftysomethings Apart?
The question is, how can this be done? The first thing for the jobseeker past age 50 to understand is that, in truth, they’re not competing with younger jobseekers—not in any meaningful way. Post-50 jobseekers bring something entirely different to the table than their younger colleagues and counterparts—namely, they bring an entire career’s worth of experience.
That experience is what makes post-50 jobseekers unique, and uniquely appealing to employers. As such, it’s what the resume should highlight. Your resume should be constructed in a way that it tells the story of your career, pulling every job and every position you’ve held into a tight narrative, highlighting results and accomplishments along the way.
Some Tips for Crafting Your Resume
Some specific tips for crafting a resume that tells the story of your career include:
- Ditch the Objective—which suggests a kind of youthful naiveté—and instead begin your resume with an Executive Summary that spells out exactly who you are as an employee, focusing on the key skills and most significant achievements you have amassed.
- Summarize your entire career in reverse chronological order. You don’t necessarily want to leave anything out—even if it’s a retail job you had right out of college—because every position you’ve held contributes to the larger narrative of your professional life. With that said, the focus should be on the past 10 or 15 years.
- You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, as far as your resume formatting goes, and you don’t need any gimmicks to hook hiring managers or recruiters. Instead, your resume should be centered on the one thing that sets it apart from the resumes of younger folks—i.e., that it’s meatier, packed with more details from your professional life.
- On that note, keep the focus on achievements, on success that you’ve had, on projects completed, and on quantifiable results. You’ve been in the workforce for a long time now—so what do you have to show for it?
Some post-50 jobseekers wonder if their age puts them at a disadvantage—but a good resume will put your experience to good use for you. After all, what could be more impressive to an employer than a long list of career achievements?
To learn more about crafting such a resume, we invite you to contact Grammar Chic, Inc. today. Call 803-831-7444, or visit www.grammarchic.net.
Amanda E. Clark founded Grammar Chic in 2008. She is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University and holds degrees in Journalism, Political Science, and English. She launched Grammar Chic after freelancing for several years while simultaneously leading marketing and advertising initiatives for several Fortune 500 companies.