By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Yes, there is ageism AND you don’t have to make it easy for them
What Recruiters Know That You Don’t: They Aren’t Watching All Those Screening Videos
I thought I would do a video today that talks about some of the dumb things that older professionals do when they’re looking for work.
Now, I arbitrarily picked over 50. This applies to people who could be in their mid 40s, as well as my age. And in case you haven’t noticed, that’s a lot of gray in there.
I’m not just over 50, okay? So I’ll simply start off with the biggest mistake. And I want to contextualize it by saying, you know, that there’s ageism in the workforce, right? And people do get discriminated against on the basis of age. And then you write a resume that says, 25 years of experience, 30 years, 40 years of experience doing such and such.
And thus, what you’re doing in submitting your resume is making it easy for the algorithm to spot the fact that you’re an older worker, and that their system can arbitrarily screen you out. Or even if it’s a, you know, someone who’s actually reading it, you’re announcing, hey, I’m old. Seriously.
And, you know, there’s ageism. So why do you make it easy for them, you know? Now, on the other hand, you have a choice. And that’s to use your age as an asset.
And that can wind up working very well, if you’re a very seasoned individual, I don’t mean that seasoned by age, but seasoned by seniority. If you’re a veteran individual, who’s going for something, you know, SVP, C-suite, anything along those lines, there, the number of years might make sense. But even when you construct your resume, you have to think smart.
So, so often, you know, when I was reading lots and lots of resumes, when I was doing search, I would see lots of irrelevant experience in the resume. They emphasize things that were basically back in the antiquities of ancient history, or their ancient history, rather than emphasizing the current work. Now, sometimes they did that, because the more interesting work was the older work, not the more recent work.
Recruiters Are Not Your Friends
And I will tell you, again, from screening, you know, employers really care about the recent experience, not the stuff that you think is relevant from 25 years ago, they’re never going to see it in your resume, because, frankly, they’re only going to go down one or two page downs in order to find it. Now, you may think, okay, so I’m going to use a functional resume, and that’s going to fool them. It won’t fool them.
Most of them will ask for a chronological one, because they know the trick. So think in terms of how you can position your current work in ways that advantage you against this job and get rid of numbers of years of experience, like 25, 30, 40 years of experience. Remove graduation dates.
Now, if you’re going through a background, you know, unless you went back to school to get that degree, and you were like mid-career, so then it’s okay to do it. But if you’re going to . . . like, for example, I graduated college in 71. Would I put 1971 in my resume? No.
I might put my master’s that I got in 1998 and even that one’s questionable today because that’s, you know, as of the recording today, that’s 20 years ago. So, think in terms of what appeals to the audience isn’t going to cause you to be arbitrarily rejected. Now, a couple of small things, and these could be general statements, but I think they’re good reminders.
Number one, get rid of your objective on the resume. Seriously, no one cares what you want. You need to tailor your resume to demonstrate your fit and if you have this objective that is a little bit off from what the nature of the position is, you’re inviting them to reject you.
Seriously. One other thing, and I think it’s a big one, I want to talk to those of you who are doing career change, you know, it’s very hard to start from scratch in a new career that has nothing to do with your previous one. Now, I’m not talking about if you’re going to go into business for yourself, but let’s say you want to become an accountant, or a lawyer, or an engineer, and your background up until that point had nothing to do with those professions.
Out of Work, Not Out of Control: Structure = Momentum
Firms look at your background, and they see a rookie at age 55, at age 60, and they think to themselves, you know, and it’s stupid, but this is how they think. They think to themselves, I’ve only got this person for a couple of years. Now, again, it’s stupid because a 25 year old or a 22 year old, they got the same issue with because they’re not going to sit there for any length of time.
So if you’re going to market yourself for a complete career change, which is harder to do if you’re dealing with a full time position, you need to have the body of your email address this by saying, hey, look, I’m in the midst of a career change. No, I’m not 22. However, I want to put down roots in an organization.
And if you’re worried about how much time you’re going to get from me, well, frankly, think about it. How much time are you going to get from the 22 year old to the 24 year old? They’re not going to stay with you for 20 years. Obviously, I’m not either.
But, you know, I’m someone who’s demonstrated loyalty and dedication. This is important to me. I’d love to have a chance to talk with you about my background.
My Manager/Boss Found Out I’m Looking!
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
People hire Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter to provide No BS job search coaching and career advice globally because he makes job search and succeeding in your career easier.
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He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2900 episodes over 13+ years.
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