How To Stand Out In Your Resume As The Unemployment Rate Is About To Increase
With the coronavirus causing the stock market to lower, and companies to shutter their doors due to lack of production around the world, it’s looking very much like the unemployment rate could increase around the world in the coming months. When this happens, it’s important to stand out on your resume, especially if you are over the age of 40.
Individuals 40+ are already more prone to experiencing ageism in society. This means that their resumes are often passed over because they are “over the hill,” “not trainable,” or assumed “unwilling to learn new things.”
If you are over the age of 40, and believe you may be impacted by upcoming unemployment increases, it’s time to take action. Take action before the negative impact, not during.
Here’s what you can do to stand out on your resume if you believe you will be dealing with ageism in your job search:
Keep Your Age At Bay
While it can be very challenging to eliminate your age entirely from your resume, it’s important not to make it a focal point. Take a look at your resume as it stands right now, could you lose your graduation date? Could you lose some of your very first jobs, or the dates you held them? If so, go for it. Less is usually more when it comes to dates on your resume if you believe ageism will be a factor in the hiring process.
Quickly Tell a Story
Be intentional about the story you are trying to tell, but also be snappy about it. Quickly get to the point of who you are, but in a way that emphasizes everything you’re good at. Imagine you’ve just run into an old friend in the elevator, and you have just a few moments to catch up with where you are at in your career, get that brief update on your resume for a hiring manager to see.
Let your story do most of the heavy-lifting on your resume. Pay less attention to specifics of your role, and more about the overall picture of what you created, how you transformed the team, or what you did to bring immense value to the organization. Companies will want to hire someone who can do the same for them, and care less about the nitty-gritty details of your job until later on in the interview process.
Detail Your Most Recent Experience
Some of your older positions might be incredible, so don’t pass up the opportunity to include them on your resume, but really dig into your most recent experience. Stick with relevant details and latest positions in order to avoid sounding older or dating yourself with technology you trained on, or had wins with, that may not be industry standard anymore.
Update Your Social Media Accounts
Human Resources and hiring managers spend a lot of time looking at the social media accounts of potential new hires. They want to make sure that they fit the culture, and subconsciously they could also be looking at who you are as a person and how you live your life. It’s important that anything you wouldn’t want a potential new manager to see is scrubbed from your accounts. Also, it’s important to tell your story on your accounts too – give extra emphasis to your strengths and skills in your posts during the time you are looking for a new job – that just might catch the eye of an interviewer!
