Don’t age and experience count for anything these days?” I have heard this or similar comments with alarming regularity from mature jobseekers battling to get a foot in the door and secure a new role. No doubt about it, over 50s are doing it tough in today’s competitive job market.

When I work with clients in this age bracket, I notice two common issues with their résumés – information overload, or a lack of information. I understand where the issues come from: you’ve got a great background; you’re proud of your career and achievements,
and you believe it will impress employers to include everything you’ve ever done in your career. Or you are terrified of being discriminated against based on your age, so you include the bare necessities and hope it pitches you well enough to get an interview.
The reality, though, is you are probably overwhelming or underwhelming employers. Don’t worry though, there is a happy median.
Let’s tackle information overload first. Anyone faced with writing a résumé is liable to become flabbergasted with the amount of advice out there – do this, don’t do that, you must include this, you must omit that … One of the most common pieces of advice you’ll hear is not to go back further than 10 years in your work history. I agree with this to a degree. Employers today are inundated with responses, and are time poor. They won’t read long résumés because generally they’re trying to get through the stack quickly and whittle down the pile. Your résumé is supposed to impress the reader, to entice them with highlights, to pique their interest enough that they want to find out more about you, either in a phone or face-to-face interview. It is also true that employers are usually most interested in your recent experience.

But what happens when you’ve got great experience that is relevant to the role or will help solidify you as a worthy candidate, but it is 10 or more years ago? The magic word here is summarise. You can group periods of employment together under one heading and focus on the highlights of that period. For example:

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
Enjoyed a long and successful career with ABC Pty Ltd progressing through sales, operations, and logistics roles based on performance. Contributions included: Sales & Service: Supported improvements to sales and productivity as Sales Manager. Led strong customer service culture based on solutions sales approach.
Logistics & Fleet Management: Effectively managed fleet and logistic requirements for 30 business units nationally.
Inventory Control: Led rapid improvements to inventory management and reporting through introduction of single national master
file, together with a suite of reports for management.
OR
ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
As Sales Manager for XYZ Pty Ltd, designed and led a Sales and Marketing Plan that generated $5M in revenue.
As Regional Sales Manager for ABC Pty Ltd, built a sales team that exceeded targetsby XX%.
As Customer Service & Sales Manager with XYZ Inc., drove changes across customer service operations that reduced operating
costs by 45%.
OR
ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE
Previous leadership experience with ABC Pty Ltd involving branch management, customer service, and call centre operations
training, building teams to continually exceed targeted goals.
Those are some of the ways you can include information that dates back further than 10 years and present it in a way that doesn’t
unnecessarily age you, keeps your résumé to a reasonable length, and still markets you as a person with valuable experience that will enable you to perform well in the role. Information underload has a different set of consequences. If you decide to cut your work history off at 10 years, you may be underselling yourself. If there are aspects of your earlier career that support your candidacy, you need to include them in the résumé. You can adopt one of the methods above, as well as summarise a particular project, role, etc in your career highlights. You can also incorporate aspects of your earlier experience in your opening profile.
I understand that being a mature jobseeker is daunting and sadly, age discrimination does exist. Leaving everything out from your earlier career might seem like your only option, but it isn’t. If you take that approach you could be doing yourself a real disservice.

The best advice I can give you is to look at each job on an individual basis and really think about what you’ve done in your career.
If there are earlier roles/experiences that will help, tailor your application to suit that employer. You don’t have to send the exact same résumé in response to every job – if you take the time to tweak it to suit the role, you’ll find it makes more of an impact.

Don’t forget the valuable opportunity a cover letter or email affords you. These are fantastic places to draw reference to particular experiences from your background that make you a candidate worthy of consideration. Don’t be afraid to be creative when it comes to presenting your experience. Think about yourself as a product. Employers are buying, and products are sold on their features and benefits. You need to get the employer’s attention: show what you’ve got, what you’ve done, how you can meet their needs, and what you can offer them. Remember, that will not be the same for every position. Résumés are individual documents, and whilst there are guidelines you should follow, it doesn’t mean you can’t step outside the box to highlight your unique situation.
Try it with your next application.

THIS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY MICHELLE LOPEZ
Michelle Lopez is an award winning Certified Advanced Resume Writer with over 15years’ experience across multiple industry sectors.
You can learn more at www.one2oneresumes.com.au

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