8 Resume Tips for Older Job Seekers (2023)

FAQs

How do I write a resume for a 60 year old? ›

For many older job seekers, it may be best to use a hybrid resume. This resume style allows you to highlight your relevant skills at the top of the resume without drawing attention to your dates of employment. While you include your work history in chronological order, it doesn't take center stage.

Diversify Your Experience

This can work wonders for your resume. Compartmentalize your career into the different roles and positions you have held, going back a decade or so. List each position separately, as though they were separate jobs, despite the fact that the employer is the same.

Your retiree resume should include several of the same elements of any other resume, such as a summary of experience, skills, certifications and education. A retiree resume, however, focuses on the skills and qualifications you have gained from your employment.

Examples of retired resume objectives

Driven sales specialist with 17 years of experience in insurance sales and the retail industry, seeking to use my expert knowledge of sales tactics and customer service techniques to boost a company's profit and expand clientele.

Generally, experts recommend keeping about 10-15 years of work experience on your resume, but that guidance changes depending on your professional history. Your resume is one of the first things a potential employer sees about you.

Listing 20 or 30 years of experience can clutter your resume and make it much too long. Unless you are a senior executive, the ideal resume length is one to two pages. The key to a winning resume is providing relevant details on your work history—not every detail.

While you'll have to provide dates in your work experience section, you can age-proof your resume by removing older roles as well as dates related to education and certifications if they fall outside that 15-year window, recommends Augustine.

Do employers look at old resumes? ›

The answer may surprise you! Not only do employers keep resumes and other documents on file, they often go back through them to find candidates for open positions.

Most resumes should be between one and two pages long. But, some can be three pages or more.

The common advice is to keep the work experience in a resume between 10 to 15 years. Doing so will give your hiring manager a general outline of your start, your growth, and where you find yourself now.

Most experts recommend including 10-15 years of work history on your resume. For the majority of professionals, this includes between three and five different jobs.

Include volunteer work you did during your period of unemployment. Emphasize your education by adding more detail to your resume education section. Add any certifications you got while unemployed. Briefly explain why you haven't been working in your resume summary.

Unlike a traditional résumé, which shows off our achievements, a failure résumé lists the times when things have not gone to plan; for example when you didn't land a role, or you messed up a project.

The last section to consider adding to your resume is a shortlist of any other relevant accomplishments or volunteer work. Only include those that are relevant or that may help create a better picture of who you are as an individual as related to the position you're applying for.

Personal details. There's no need to include personal information on a resume such as your social security number, marital status, nationality, sexual orientation, or spiritual beliefs. In fact, it is illegal for employers to ask for these personal details.

Here's how to write an objective for a resume:

Start with a strong trait, add 2–3 key skills, describe your professional goals, and say what you hope to do for the company. State the position to which you're applying and use the name of the company. Keep it short: 2–3 sentences or 30–50 words is the sweet spot.

General career objective examples

Example 1: To secure a challenging position in a reputable organization to expand my learnings, knowledge, and skills. Example 2: Secure a responsible career opportunity to fully utilize my training and skills, while making a significant contribution to the success of the company.

Should I take the years off my resume? ›

Well, for one, career experts agree: There is no rule that you have to put your graduation year on your resume. While removing the year can be a smart move to deflect attention from your exact age, career experts suggest that you focus on your experience instead of worrying about your age.

Directly address your current unemployment and give it full context. Explain why you left your last job and why you've been out of the job market so long. This gives the hiring manager some background on the situation and keeps them from imagining the worst about you.

You can tell them all about it in a "Volunteer Experience" or "Relevant Volunteer and Academic Experience" subheading on your resume.

You're probably going to need more than just a resumé to get an interview. But that's a subject for another post. Consider that Career Builder suggests 10 years as a benchmark for how far back your resumé can go in 2023.

You Don't Need to Include Every Job on Your Resume: Highlight jobs that demonstrate your experience, skills, and fit for the role. Leave Off Jobs That Are Unrelated: You can also omit jobs that are more than 10 to 15 years old, to avoid age discrimination.

Hiring managers won't usually pay attention to what you did beyond that. How many jobs on a resume is too many? More than five jobs on a resume is too many. Typically a good rule of thumb is to include just two to four jobs on a resume, or enough to cover the past 15 years of your work experience.

How Long Is Too Long? The length of the resume is a common question for applicants during the job search process. The standard rule is that a resume should never exceed two pages, regardless of the years of experience. Although there are some exceptions, you should follow this rule in most cases.

How many references should I include on a resume? Many applications tend to ask for 2 to 3 references. It isn't necessary to have more but it may raise red flags to a hiring manager if you only have one. They may ask for a mix of previous direct supervisors as well as character references.

How Many Jobs Should You List on a Resume? You should list as many jobs on your resume as you can assuming they are all relevant and you're not going beyond the 10-15 year limit. The number of jobs typically varies between 7 and 3. As long as each job or position is relevant, you shouldn't worry about the exact number.

What mistakes should I try to avoid when writing a resume? ›

Your opening statement should start with one sentence about who you are and what you bring to the job, then describe the skills and attributes you have that suit you to the job.

As a general rule of thumb, a resume should include one page for every 10 years of work experience. Recent graduates should not have two page resumes and director level professionals should not have four or five pages.

Customize your resume for the job you're applying for and include only relevant experience. If you've done everything right, you shouldn't get past one page. If you have 10-15+ years of experience, it's okay to write a 2-page resume as long as all the information presented is relevant to the job.

The most commonly used resume type, a chronological resume traces your work and educational history in reverse chronological order, just like on LinkedIn. Probably the biggest reason why most job seekers use a chronological resume is recruiters are most familiar with it.

Being fired is not a reason why candidates should exclude a job from their CV. So no, you should not forget about your last position just because you've been let go. That is because you have still done the work, hopefully the company thrive, learned new skills, and achieved results.

The short answer is: No, you don't need to add an address to your resume. In today's workforce, most communication is done via email or phone. This makes the need for a full address outdated. Instead, you should list a general location on your resume.

The short answer as to whether your resume should be one page is still, ideally, yes. Employers have to look through dozens, if not hundreds, of resumes to fill a position. They want the resumes to be quick and easy to read, so the shorter, the better.

You can use a two-page resume if you have an extensive work history of over 10-15 years or if you're applying for an executive position. If you're a student or entry-level applicant, your best bet is to use a one-page resume.

In general, work in a backward chronological order (in a resume format often known as reverse chronological format ) starting with your most recent position at the top of the page and include the last 10-15 years of employment history. The backward chronological order works best for most job seekers.

How do you explain a 10 year employment gap? ›

Don't include your entire work history.

Instead, list only those you've held over the last 10 to 15 years and stick to positions most relevant to the job you're applying for. This means you don't have to worry about employment gaps that fall outside of this timeframe.

If your resume is too long, it's a complete waste of time to go through. On the other hand, if a resume is too short they won't get an overview of your suitability for the position. It's good practice to scope out the hiring preferences of the company you are applying to.

Generally, experts recommend keeping about 10-15 years of work experience on your resume, but that guidance changes depending on your professional history. Your resume is one of the first things a potential employer sees about you.

Should you put your age on your resume? "? You should not include your age on a resume because it can prevent you from being hired. Although many employers have adjusted their hiring process to reduce bias based on age, hiring discrimination still exists in the workplace.

For most candidates, a resume should be only one page. Be brief and concise with anything you write on your resume. Customize your resume for the job you're applying for and include only relevant experience. If you've done everything right, you shouldn't get past one page.

Personal details. There's no need to include personal information on a resume such as your social security number, marital status, nationality, sexual orientation, or spiritual beliefs. In fact, it is illegal for employers to ask for these personal details.

Did you know in a competitive labor market, your resume must get you on the interview pile within 30 seconds? If not, you will end up in the reject pile and never get a shot to sell yourself in person. 30 seconds is longer than the average recruiter takes.

Don't go back more than 10 to 15 years

The majority of experts agree that a resume should only include the last 10 to 15 years of employment, and there are several good reasons for this.

The top of your resume is for your contact information. This is your name, your phone number, your email, and for privacy reasons, just the city and state where you live. If you have professional social media channels and profiles, share them, let them know.

Do I put my address on my resume? ›

In today's workforce, including your full address on your resume is no longer necessary. However, including a general location on your resume provides an added boost to your job search.

Unless you list your birthday somewhere on your resume, the employer should not ever see your age.

“Top soft skills are teamwork, attention to detail, time management, organization, verbal and written communication, leadership, emotional intelligence, adaptability/flexibility, problem-solving/conflict resolution, and interpersonal skills …