Only a Fool Would Suggest That Ageism Doesn’t Exist

Seen as overqualified? Maybe the problem is on your end.

For the last couple of years, I have had the privilege of serving on a task force for the State of Massachusetts Department of Elder Affairs which focuses on barriers to employment for those over 50 years old.

The great thing about this project is that it enables me to conduct roundtable brainstorming sessions regarding mature workers with top human resources executives across several industries in Greater Boston. We also collect live feedback from heads of state agencies focused on employment and hundreds of 50+ workers who have been actively engaged in a search.

We have identified multiple areas in which senior job seekers have some disadvantages. The good news is that most of them can be effectively addressed somewhat quickly. My next few blog posts will focus on how older workers can best maintain value in the job market. The topic for today is benchmarking resumes.

Our survey revealed some very interesting patterns relative to screening candidates. We found that most employers were very enthusiastic about hiring older workers because they tend to offer the soft skills needed in today’s workplace. But in an interesting paradox, it was clear that most of the tools and techniques used to screen candidates focused on more objective criteria such as number of years’ experience, use of technology, and professional degrees and certifications.

One of the dynamics of late career management is that mature workers tend to have similar career goals: make a contribution, earn a little money, and share their knowledge with younger generations. This evident when corporate vice presidents target manager -mentor level jobs or when $400K a year executives go after $60K per year jobs.

Most of the failed searches I have been asked to troubleshoot share a common weakness. They don’t scale their experience to match the level or function of the job that they are going for.

If a job asks for 7 to 10 years’ experience, claiming 35 does not match.

If a job asks for experience supervising 3 to 5 people, claiming 650 does not match.

If they are looking to build community relationships, global enterprise management does not match.

Many older workers have achieved amazing things. And it is very tough NOT to promote our greatest accomplishments. But insisting on including content that is out of scale or not aligned with the needs of the hiring side is not only ineffective, but also inconsiderate. It is unfair to blame an employer for seeing us an overqualified when we have done nothing to close the gap on our end.

The secret sauce for building a resume to succeed with online applications, recruiters, and hiring managers is to use sample job postings for the function and level desired as the starting point. Anything that they ask for that you can truthfully claim can go in. Anything you have done that they don’t ask for probably should not. If you can add numbers to support the scale of the next job, do it. If your numbers are not even close, then don’t.

While there is no literal rule on page length or lookback, the typical expectations are 15 years’ experience and a two-page resume. There are sometimes good reasons to do more than this, but it is important to know that the further you get away from these guidelines, the more risk you run of appearing too strong or outdated for a job.

Some of the jobs you are targeting may ask for experience with a tool that you don’t have, like Excel, or Tableau, or Salesforce. One remedy for these types of gaps would be taking a course on LinkedIn or similar resource that accredits participants for each level of achievement. These can be included in the resume as well as on the LinkedIn profile.

Several of the senior HR people in our roundtable group said that they seek out candidates using LinkedIn and value the badges and certifications there because they can be confident in the candidate’s minimal competence level. Many other certifying resources have pages on LinkedIn that enable members to show their new credentials.

In the end, it is important to show potential employers the relevant skills that you offer and eliminate the content they don’t care about that makes it too hard to find them.