Boomers - don't get cute with the resume details - keep it real...

Last week, I overheard someone recommending that a candidate take dates off resumes.  I'm weighing in, because removing dates from your resume is a forced, unnatural, red flag thing to do...

As a HR pro and someone who looks at thousands of candidates a year, I'm not a fan of removing dates  from resumes. One of the things I rely on to make sense of a career, and how it fits our needs, is how many years you performed role A, B or C.  Take the dates off the resume, and it's hard for me to figure that out. If you're really concerned about the age thing, feel free to remove dates from your diploma or degree, because once you've been in the world of work for five years, those things become less important than your experience. 

Let's say you've got 30 years of experience and have worked for six different companies in your career. You should assume HR pros and hiring managers want you to spend 80 percent of your space talking about the last five years of your career. A good way to focus on your recent experience, and deemphasize what you did in the 1980's, is to outline the scope and accomplishments of your last two jobs in detail, then drop the rest of the work experience into a list format that only takes up a small portion of a page. Another handy tip, to avoid overwhelming a prospective employer with your experience, is to never go past two pages on a resume.  Your accomplishments warrant more than one page, but three pages is overkill.

As sad as it sounds, the average, initial resume review lasts five to 10 seconds, after which it's placed in a "yes" or "no" stack for a deeper review at a later time. All you want your resume to do is move to the "yes" stack and generate a phone call when the company is ready to talk.

More important than age, to any hiring manager, is your energy and confirmation that you are looking forward rather than backward. Change your perspective from "look what I have done" to "look what I can do for you".  How do you do that?  Move from statements on your resume that outline what you were responsible for ("managed three-state sales territory") to statements that show analysis and action ("developed low-cost database to track leads and automate mail-out process"). Transitioning from responsibility to action on your resume lets hiring managers see the value and envision how you can help them.

A forward-looking perspective is the key.  If HR pros and hiring managers can envision what you are going to do to help them, your age won't matter.   Look forward with your positioning, don't take the easy way out and simply remove dates from your CV...