Monthly Archives: June 2008

Prune That Resume!

One of advantages of being an older worker (lots of experience), can also play havoc with a resume, especially in a field that typically skews to younger people.  The good news: recruiters tend to prefer older workers over younger for their stability (average length of stay for younger worker is 26 months).  Here are a few tips from an IT specialist on how to create a resume that brings out your best for the job you’re after in any field.  

  • Prune that resume down to the essentials!  If you’re 50 or better, it probably reads more like a book than a document designed to get you that interview.  You’re likely competing with younger folks, so let the points be crisp and compelling.      
  •  Focus on 3-4 core skills that are directly relevant to the job you’re seeking.  Think of your resume as a work in progress and be prepared to customize it quickly.  Obvious point: check grammar and proof for typos every time you change and reprint it.
  • Skip any certifications, expertise or accomplishments that ‘date’ you.  After you get a feel for the work at hand, you can always bring them up during the interview. 
  • Smartest tip we’ve seen anywhere: ask people in the field you’re interested in to critique your resume.  They’re much more likely to see the red flags that could mean your resume winds up in the trash.   
  • Be confident.  The workplace is changing in your favor.  According to AARP, by 2012 almost 20 percent of the U.S. work force will be 44 or over. Americans are predicted to work longer than ever before. There were 5.5 million people 65 and older in the labor force in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a number which is projected to reach 10.1 million by 2016.
Read more:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-manager/?p=515

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Careers/Tips-for-Older-IT-Job-Seekers/

 

Paradigm Shift?

You know something is changing in the culture when you start to see full page ads with words and images that deliver a new message. When I was contemplating a next career as a yoga instructor 10 years ago, it still seemed a rather esoteric, out there endeavor. Today, Yoga Journal is fat with advertising for retreats, schools, yoga products of every description. Moreover, images of toned people striking yoga poses or sitting in smiling meditation are commonplace in mainstream media.

With this in mind, I have to mention a full page ad that appeared in PLAY, a magazine section of last Sunday’s New York Times, that is emblematic of the zeitgeist as regards older people and the choice of meaningful second acts. The ad is for a new partnership between the Times and Monster.com, the career site. The headline copy is: FIND A JOB YOU’D DO FOR FREE…THEN LET THEM PAY YOU. “When you do what you love to do,” continues the body text, “it’s not really work at all. Now you can find the job you love, when you love to live. Your calling is calling — find it at nytimes.com/monster.” Good enough (and I love the idea of a job one loves), but the image should resonate with all of us 50 and beyond. It shows a mature male face, a hand holding a piece of chalk at a blackboard, the suggestion of a classroom. A teacher who loves his job?

As it happens, teaching is, like nursing and nurse-training, a profession where there are more jobs than people to fill them. These are also jobs where maturity and life experience give one an unusual advantage, and where we can exercise the ‘give back’ desire than grows stronger as we pass midlife and begin seeking our life’s work. Our calling, which we may have ignored to attend to the business of building a career and family, calls more loudly and clearly. How each of us answers can shape the rest of our lives. If enough of us in later life choose work that makes a positive impact on society, we can shift the paradigm*.

*Once used only in the scientific context, “paradigm shift” has found uses in other contexts, representing the notion of a major change in a certain thought-pattern — a radical change in personal beliefs, complex systems or organizations, replacing the former way of thinking or organizing with a radically different way of thinking or organizing (Source: Wikipedia)