Transcript
Speaker: Hey, stop, don't send your resume quite yet. We're gonna play a game today. Keep or cut, from your resume that is. I'm gonna name it, you call it. The bell means you keep it, the buzzer means cut.
Speaker: We're gonna start here with ah with a really easy one. Paper route at age 14.
Speaker: No, another easy one. Lifeguard 17. at seventeen
Speaker: How about the first corporate job in 1989? Okay, now we're
Speaker: gonna amp it up. How about personnel manager with Rolodex and fax machine skills?
Speaker: Okay, how about director 2016 cloud rollout with a team of 12?
Speaker: There we go. Okay, now we're warming up. How about VP in 2021, AI workflow with some results in numbers. Okay, we're getting the hang of it, right?
Speaker: Stay with me for the next 10 minutes. I'm gonna show you where to cut, why it could cost you interviews and how to fix it without erasing your career.
Speaker: First, a quick question. What's the oldest job still on your resume right now? Drop the year in the comments below. I'll be curious to to see those. Here's the thing.
Speaker: i get why you list it all. You you earned it. You're proud of it. 30 years of showing up, delivering results, surviving layoffs and reorgs. it's It's really hard to hit that delete key.
Speaker: But let me be honest with you. Recruiters, they don't read that as loyalty. They read that as age signals. Expensive, out of touch, maybe not adaptable.
Speaker: It's not fair. It's bullshit actually, but it's real. So your resume, it can't be a historical archive or a life and times of. It needs to be a marketing brochure selling you for a particular role.
Speaker: And the same goes for LinkedIn, only stricter. And that's important because too much history, it creates overload. Recruiters, they stop reading and instead they start guessing your age.
Speaker: Hey, Fred, this one here had a paper route in 79, must be at least 60. What do you think? Let's avoid that. We're going age proof you today.
Speaker: Here's the key question. Are you selling your future or are you archiving your past? Think like a recruiter for a second. They have a particular position to fill.
Speaker: So they scan fast. They see the 87 to 2025, graduation, 82. They're not gonna read back to 87. They're just gonna move on. Why? It's too much to process. It's too easy to label you as overqualified, too easy to assume that you cost too much and might be unadaptable.
Speaker: Here's an irony too. The best stories you have from 1995 aren't going to get you into the interview. They might just get you sorted out before the interview process is even initiated.
Speaker: And here's the fear that I hear a lot. If I cut out old jobs, am I lying? No, no, not at all. You're selecting. A job application is a legal record, but a resume is marketing.
Speaker: They're very different. You still give your full job history on the background check, but on the resume, you lead with what's relevant to that job. Think about what's important to the job that you're actually applying for right now.
Speaker: So where do you cut? You got to keep the detail for, let's say, 10 to 15 years only. That's it. No more. Everything older goes into one section, but only if it's relevant to what you're applying for. That one you can title as earlier career highlights.
Speaker: No dates, no months, just title plus maybe one win per role. Something like this. Regional sales manager grew key accounts 22%. plant supervisor, lead safety turnaround.
Speaker: Keep it to three or four lines total. And if the the job predates Wi-Fi, say 2005, it definitely goes in the vault. But I would use 2010 as your guideline for 2026.
Speaker: Now, LinkedIn is similar. In fact, you can pretty much directly mirror what you have in the resume, changing the wording, as long as there are no big career gaps. For those gaps, in LinkedIn, you can create the same experience entry, the earlier career highlights without dates again.
Speaker: You can even put something in the featured section at the top of your profile, one of your wins. Try try doing that this week. Before we get to work, I want to put in a quick plug. I've got lots of resources and information on ageismsurvivalguide.com. Have a look at those and our services.
Speaker: If you become a paid subscriber, you have full access to everything, plus you get significant savings on the services. And don't forget to subscribe to the channel right now before this episode is over.
Speaker: Okay, now let's move on to fix number two. Remove the dates that shout out your age. University degrees, they stay. The years go. The same goes for awards and certifications that are older than 10 to 15 years. Reframe those as notable recognition. No no year needed.
Speaker: Your diploma is timeless. The year on it, though, gives you a way for no extra pay and a pretty likely spot in the rejection bin. Now this part, most guides miss and it ages you fast. So I can't stress this one enough.
Speaker: Fix number three, email to Gmail or Outlook only. No AOL, no Hotmail, no Yahoo. And check out my recent episode on old email addresses. I'll put a link below.
Speaker: Also only put location as city and state, no full street address, only your mobile number, not your home phone, delete your objective and delete the references available upon request. It's not necessary.
Speaker: Now, fix number four, you gotta purge the old skills. Delete typing, delete Microsoft Office, delete Lotus Notes, delete WordPerfect, DOS, get rid of it, FACTS, out, even the BlackBerry, out.
Speaker: Now replace those with the current tech stack, Slack, Zoom, Google Workspace, CRM, Cloud Workflow, AI tools. AI is really hot right now, there's no excuse not to have that on your resume.
Speaker: And if your resume, if it mentions facts more than once, you need an intervention. I mean, hell, if you have facts in there at all, you need an intervention. Cutting is not enough though. You've got to replace for each recent role lead with wins for the last five years, not duties, wins.
Speaker: Two or three quantified wins per role. Group revenue, cut costs, lead rollout, and be sure to use numbers or KPIs if you have them. Fix the language too. You need modern terms. Personnel becomes people operations or ah HR. Rolodex becomes professional network and Typing becomes digital communication.
Speaker: Add recent learning, one course, one certification, or a project from the last 24 months that that you possibly had led. The message is simple. Be experienced and current.
Speaker: But don't try to fix it, all of it, 30 years of it today. Do this, maybe three cuts today, the oldest job, graduation dates, the old email. Try three resume rewrites this week, the headline, the about section with short paragraphs. Maybe address your top role with some performance numbers.
Speaker: Add a LinkedIn post, one course or a certification that you started, and go have a networking coffee, not a hundred cold applications. Remember, paper screens you out for 30 years of experience. that People pull you in for 30 years of knowing you.
Speaker: Networking tells the full story. It's our secret weapon over 50.
Speaker: Now back to my question, what is the oldest job still on your resume? Drop it below, maybe even the title. I read every single comment and I respond to all of them.
Speaker: Remember, you're not hiding your age. You're removing distractions so that they see your strengths clearly. This is our time to rise. Youth runs fast, but age knows the terrain.
Speaker: I'll see you in the next one.
