5 Resume Tips for Baby Boomers

In my circle of family and friends, I’m in charge of doing everyone’s resume and Linkedin profiles. It’s a good idea to keep your resume up to date. Make your resume look modern and thoughtful, and make yourself more hirable, right now by following these 5 simple tips:

  1. Remove the Objective. Employers don’t care about what you want. They don’t care that you “Seek a challenging position that utilizes my skills and experience.” They care most about what they need, and what you can do for them. See next tip.
  2. Add a “Summary” at the top of your resume.This is the area to highlight what you will offer new employers. List industry-related skills. Make it easy to read and only include factual information. This is where you would highlight info such as: “15 years of communications leadership” or “20 years of hands-on event coordination.” Give them specifics, such as: “Significant knowledge of nonprofit governance, corporate and foundation relations, board development and management.” or “ Strong technical knowledge of all types of AV equipment and control systems, including analog and digital sound consoles, audio visual software, MIDI show controls and lighting systems.” That’s the type of specificity that will set your resume apart from others.
  3. Add Keywords. Resumes are scanned by computers and people to identify specific search terms. Your summary is the place to include keywords recruiters will use to find you, and match you with the right job openings. Remember: you have to be found by the HR department first, so make sure you have more than just industry jargon in your resume.
  4. Remove “References available upon request” at the bottom of your resume. Are you seeking a job at the CIA where your references are a big secret? Unlikely. Make your resume stand out by including your reference list as a part of your submission (cover letter, resume, references). Don’t make a recruiter request anything. Anyway, you should have publicly available references and recommendations on your LinkedIn profile. Which leads us to tip 5.
  5. Create or strengthen your LinkedIn profile. You must do this. You have no choice in the matter. Have you ever Googled yourself? It’s better to have that first result be a professional profile on LinkedIn. At minimum, add your resume, create a cool headline that summarizes your specific abilities and add a nice photo. Yes, you need to add the photo. Deal with it. Next, LinkedIn makes it easy for you to add connections, so follow the steps and get some connections. Search for and join some industry groups. Finally, ask for recommendations from current and former co-workers, supervisors, vendors, and classmates. Recruiters will look at your profile on LinkedIn. Today it has a huge impact on the hiring process. So take your profile seriously.

Okay, here’s a bonus tip.

I know best practices tell you bulleted lists get read more. But if you have more than three bullets under your job description, the value of this nicely ordered list just fades away. Trust me, no one will ever read more than the first three bullets, anyway. Think of your bullets as mini headlines for your experiences at that job. Figure out what’s most important, and then edit your bullets down to no more than three.

Most of all, be considerate of the people reading your resume. Their job isn’t easy, either.