Baby boomer avoids aging candidacy

Meet Jack.

Jack, a seasoned executive with a history dating back to 1978, all of which was presented on his original résumé — came to me seeking to present his vast qualifications and experience, in order to qualify him for a national sales and marketing role.

Jack sought to avoid unnecessarily aging his candidacy, make himself look too entrenched in a certain industry, and present a picture too “seasoned” for a company recruiting a candidate with less experience.

Jack’s original résumé had many flaws, some of which included:

1. Outdated objective statement — Jack opened his résumé with a section that should never appear on an up-to-date and best practices-based résumé. Instead of immediately grabbing the attention of the reader with a well-written qualifications summary, he immediately weakened his candidacy with a self-serving objective statement.

2. Non-differentiating qualifications summary — Jack did follow his objective statement with a qualifications section where he presented four bullet points conveying his 25 years of experience, the companies he had worked for, and the generalities of his roles. The summary, however, was bland and non-differentiating.

3. Underdeveloped professional experience section — Jack underestimated his value and underrepresented his candidacy throughout his résumé, using bullet points to introduce the least as well as the most significant aspects of his career.

Each of Jack’s nine employers were given fairly equal billing on the page, most with five or six short bullet points with many statements as brief as four words.

4. Education section harming candidacy — Jack only presented experience back to 1988 on his résumé however he dated his academic experience from the 1970s, adding years to his candidacy and doing himself great harm in the process based on not painting a “competitive” picture of his candidacy.

To position Jack in the most advantageous light there were several strategies deployed, including:

1. Completely revamp the format — It was imperative to create an engaging, and dare I say more youthful, design to replace the outdated template Jack had been using. Through selection of an up-to-date font, an aesthetically pleasing layout, and even some strategically placed formatting and color, Jack’s new résumé stands out in what is sure to be a sea of overused black and white résumé templates.

2. Build a compelling case — In Jack’s new qualifications summary his experience was “right-sized” to ensure he looked competitive and not overqualified for the positions he was applying for. This was imperative for Jack, as it is with all candidates, as overqualified candidates are not likely to get the call for a job when they greatly exceed the desired qualifications.

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