Episode 9: Resumes in Midlife

Midlife at the Mailbox

It’s back-to-school time across the country. For a lot of people that also means thinking about career transitions. There’s a multitude of reasons why that is:

• Summer vacation is coming to end (people start to think about ending the year with a new job/career)
• Parents with young children can focus again on working full-time or part-time now that kids are back in school
• COVID-19 pandemic seems to be normalizing in schools or some people want to fulfill their new year’s resolutions about career/jobs.
• For employers, it also tends to be a busy hiring season as their own teams are back from vacationing (especially in multinational/global teams) and focused on finishing the year strongly.

It never hurts to look at your resume. In fact, many career coaches recommend updating your resume on a monthly basis to keep it fresh and avoid the stomach-turning feeling of updating your resume before your next job hunt. However, we realize that most people are not that methodical about it).

If it’s been a while since you updated your resume, here are the top trends in the resume world:

1. Branding Statements

• Gone are the days of “Objective” statements at the top of your resume!
• Branding statements have been around for a while and continue to dominate most modern resume formats.
• Your branding statement should reflect the role/job and superpower you have in the professional world.

2. Employers are looking for candidates that share their “Whole Self”

• It’s now ok to list skills other than your professional industry on your resume.
  • • Ex. Tea Sommelier for a recent candidate as part of our branding statement

3. Your experience section should reflect an accomplishment-driven resume versus task driven resume.

• Write your resume to appeal for online applications, also known as Application Tracking Systems (ATS).
  • Utilize free online resources like JobScan

If you’re a listener in midlife, here are a few other things to consider for your next resume update:

• Please limit your work experience on your resume to the last 10-15 years
  • It’s as far back as most employers would like to know, as it’s the most relevant to the job.

• List any relevant experience more than 15 years old in a separate section called “Additional Experience” if you think it’s important for your current job search.
• Remove your home or mailing address - only your city is needed!
  • There are a lot of reasons for this - privacy, data mining and so much more.

Resources

Since the Mailbox community is so special and personal to us, I’m also going to share a resume template in Microsoft Word that you can use if you’re needing a resume overhaul and don’t know where to start.

• Schedule a complimentary 15-minute Zoom session with a career transition coach, Denyse Rabbat
• Complimentary Resume Guide & Template from Denyse Rabbat Career Coaching
• JobScan