Your age shouldn’t be an issue. On your CV (resume) protect yourself from prejudice. Recruiters and employers are keenly aware of the issue.
Worried that your age might hinder your job prospects? Don’t be. Listed below are five tips to show you how to transform your resume.
1. Update your email address and LinkedIn URL.
When it comes to apparel, vintage is popular, but not so much when it comes to email.
AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail email accounts are now considered outdated. Keep your old email address for personal correspondence, but open a new account with a variation of your name for your job search, such as @gmail.
Personalize your LinkedIn URL as well, if you haven’t previously. On your CV, having the original LinkedIn URL — your name followed by letters and numbers — can make you appear technologically inept.
2. Use a more modern format.
A résumé or CV written in Times New Roman in black and white instantly ages you.
Before phones and computers, resumes were usually written in Times New Roman. Nowadays, easier-to-read sans serif fonts (those without the little tails) are commonly utilized. Calibri is a popular font among resume writers.
When choosing colors, think about your job title, personal taste, and industry. For someone in the financial services industry, dark blue and grey are good alternatives. Brighter colors, such as red, can be used to add vitality to sales resumes.
3. Reduce the negative CV impact on your early career.
A multipage CV with a 25- to 30-year history isn’t going to help you. Recruiters and employers are particularly interested in your present or most recent position, as well as the previous one.
Consider your CV to be a funnel. It should contain information about your most recent 10 to 15 years of experience, with less room for subsequent roles.
Add a “Selected Early Career” section with titles and firms solely to add gravity without discussing 20 to 30 years of experience. You can add any roles and firms you want to promote by titling the section “chosen.”
4. Remove any outdated terminology from your CV.
Objective statements at the start of a resume can make you appear out of date. Because, well, they were all basically the same, these statements went out of style years ago.
If you still have an objective statement on your resume, replace it with a summary that gives a quick overview of your career. Make sure that everything you say in your summary statement is supported by proof on your resume.
For example, if your summary states that you have a history of generating effective marketing campaigns, you must provide instances of these efforts, along with their outcomes, in the body of your resume. “References by request” should also be removed. It’s common knowledge that you’ll provide references if or when asked.
5. Share your success stories.
A modern resume will help you avoid looking antiquated. But it will not compensate for poor content. Starting your CV with “20+ years of experience” may not express value, but it will make you appear older.
Employers are interested in learning what candidates can do for them. A résumé full of duties and responsibilities that reads like a reverse-engineered work description will not impress them.
Instead, provide anecdotes about the impact you’ve had on your present and previous employers to demonstrate your worth. Use terms like “raised sales,” “saved time,” “lowered costs,” “enhanced productivity,” and so on.
Even the most impressive resume isn’t a guarantee of success. It will only assist you in getting a foot in the door. Several factors come into play once you’ve reached the interview stage. Your attitude is one of them.
You’re more likely to see evidence of age discrimination if you expect it, even if it doesn’t exist. Allowing imagined bias to get in the way of finding a new job is not a good idea.
And that about wraps it up!
Human resources personnel have learned that using the words “senior citizen” can be legally hazardous. As well as insulting and isolating.
Older job seekers have also learned to avoid that phrase at all costs. Replacing “senior citizen” with “experienced” or “veteran” is now the appropriate way to refer to oneself and for HR to refer to those past a certain age.
As America becomes more diverse, we must all contend with cultural and gender roles to consider when it comes to the CV. Men stay in the workforce longer than women. Or so it used to be thought. And certain cultures, especially in the Far East, think that working past a certain age takes away a person’s dignity; their children should provide for them. That, too, is changing. But it is still something that hiring personnel may have to deal with. The watchword, then, is “sensitivity.”
