Don't Make the Mistake of Leading with Years of Experience on Your Resume
In the past month, I have heard two respected job search experts say that you shouldn’t lead with your experience on your resume. I wholeheartedly agree. Yet, I see so many resumes that start out something like this.
“Highly capable Product Manager with 7 years experience”
Or
“VP of Marketing with 15 years of experience”
Even when answering the typical interview question of “Tell me about yourself,” many people lead with the following:
“I come with 14+ years of experience in Finance…”
Or
“I have been in Human Resources for 20 years, most recently in X role.”
In most job search situations, you should not do this. In fact, it can work against you.
Experience Does Not Equal Value
I hate to tell you this, but for many employers, years of experience do not bring the value that you think it does. While years of experience say to the reader how long you have been in a role, field, or industry, it in itself tells nothing about how you performed in the role. And for many employers, that is what they care about.
Let me give you an example to explain. Let’s say I have Jose and Esmerelda for a position. They both have worked as Sales Managers for 10 years for the same company. Jose has a territory with a revenue of $2M, Esmerelda’s territory has a revenue of $10M. Esmerelda’s territory has more complex clients and she has introduced more new products to her clients. Also, Esmerelda is in the top 5% of Sales Managers and has won numerous awards, while Jose has performed below average for the last two years.
Which person, Jose or Esmerelda, would be more valuable to a new employer?
Given all that she has accomplished, most people would feel Esmerleda would bring the greatest value. She performs at a higher level than Jose and would bring more skills and knowledge.
So why should she lead with something that does not distinguish her from Jose or other potential competitors and which in itself does not provide value? The answer is that she shouldn’t.
Esmerelda is better served to lead with all the accomplishments that this employer would find of value. That could be the size of her territory, the complexity of her clients, the new product introduction, or the sales awards.
By showing those results first thing in her resume or when answering an interview question, she immediately shows how she can help the hiring manager and the business succeed.
She should start her resume by showing her value.
Experience and Ageism
Like all forms of discrimination, I HATE that ageism exists. And the problem with it is that it is more “allowed” than other forms of discrimination and very hard to prove. It seems to have become more pronounced as the Baby Boomers, a large generation in size, are finding it harder to change jobs or find similar work when unexpectedly unemployed.
Hiring managers are in many generations including the Millenial and Gen X generations (with Gen Z not far behind) and are finding people applying for positions that are older and have more total work experience than they have. This can be intimidating to many managers. For some, they may have visions of having someone like their father or mother working for them, which may make them extremely uncomfortable. Will this person be trying to get their job? Will they be constantly trying to do things their way and not the way I want it? Can they keep up?
Especially if you are an older job seeker, you want to allay these fears.
How do you do this?
By focusing on your value to the hiring manager—your strengths and your results.
While 20+ years in the marketing industry could potentially be intimidating, instead, as an example, showing that you have skills in video marketing, content marketing, SEO, and social media could be intriguing to a hiring manager if that is what is needed for the role. Couple that with information about your achievements with tangible results in those areas relevant to the job you are seeking. Now, they can be an exciting candidate to speak with and one they would not want to ignore.
The Hiring Manager Can Count Your Years of Experience
You only have limited space on a resume. Do you need to add information that is self-apparent to those that can do simple arithmetic? While I always believe in making the job of the person who reads the resume easier, here is a case where the information is already there and easily determined at a glance. Words on a resume are precious. Don’t waste them providing an overview of your total work experience in a field.
There are two potential cases where you might want to show your amount of experience, though.
You have experience in an aspect of your profession that is an up-and-coming area, and you want to show you have knowledge or skills in it. There may be a strategic case for putting in years of experience in this situation, but I would caution that it must bring value to the reader (please see below). A better strategy may be to show what you have accomplished by writing about your results in a stand-alone Significant Accomplishments section at the top of your resume or in the Professional Experience section.
Suppose you are newer to the workforce and do not have as much job experience in your field. Still, you do have experience through your educational projects or volunteer work. In that case, you could use years of experience to help bolster your competitiveness for a position and not be excluded from consideration.
How Much Experience Should You Show on a Resume?
I often get asked how much experience should a candidate show on their resume, especially if they are in their 40s or 50s and have work experience going back decades.
I always advise my clients to be strategic about what they put on a resume. Your guiding principles should be what are the two things that a hiring manager or recruiter wants to see.
Recent and relevant.
Recent-The hiring team is likely going to only care about what you have been involved with recently. Why? Because of technological strides, the content of jobs has changed dramatically over the years. When I started my recruiting career, we did not even have Applicant Tracking Systems. I received resumes via snail mail and put them in folders. I physically went to businesses to source candidates. This is not relevant to the job of a modern recruiter. Therefore, if I was applying for that type of job, I would leave this off my resume. They would not care. It would only take space and detract from my most recent achievements.
Relevant-Hiring teams care about what you can do for them in the job they have open. Therefore, you need to look at your skills, knowledge, and experiences and only put on your resume (and talk about in your interviews) that which relates to how you can be an asset to the organization and make your new boss’s job easier. For example, if you were going into an organization that recently acquired another organization, your experience in mergers and acquisitions might be hight prized. But, your experience with hiring individuals on work visas will not be relevant if the organization does not do this.
It is better to have only what the hiring team cares about and a shorter resume than a longer resume full of extraneous information. With recency and relevancy in mind, I advise my clients that going back 10-15 years will be the best strategy in most cases.
Words To Remove from Your Resume
I often see a few words used in a resume that can detract from a strong marketing message because they focus on experience and not value. They are the following:
Seasoned
Experienced
Expert
They are often used to modify a title, such as Seasoned Operations Professional or Experienced Data Analyst, or Expert Horse Trainer.
Why are they a problem?
Because you have limited space on a resume, you want to use words that are descriptive of who you are and what you have accomplished. If you are using these words to tell the reader (or listener in an interview) that you have desired knowledge or skills, then a better approach is to spell out for the reader what it is exactly that makes you qualified for the job.
Plus, if you want to avoid ageism, a word like “seasoned” is not helpful, because you focus on the time in a role or profession and not your accomplishments. You are telling the reader that you are an older candidate. There is no reason to put bread crumbs in your resume to alert a hiring manager or recruiter of your age. In this day and age, it likely will work to your detriment.
If you have been using words like “seasoned,” remove them from your resume now.
Examples of How to Better Speak to Your Value
So instead of starting a resume saying the following:
Seasoned Electrical Engineer with 15 years of experience in the aerospace industry.
Instead, you can start your resume this way.
Hyper-organized Electrical Engineer with proven success with requirements analysis, concept development, engineering, and manufacturing in the aerospace industry.
Or another example would be removing the following from your resume:
Experienced Product Director with 20+ years of experience in the solar power field.
A stronger way to start a resume is this:
Product Director with a consistent record of exceeding top and bottom-line goals through strong financial knowledge, and focused multimillion-dollar P&L management in alternative energy industries.
Do you see how the second version shows more value? Don’t you want to be the candidate who stands out as the person who can alleviate the hiring manager’s pain points?
Conclusion
Hiring managers and recruiters will not infer you are qualified just by showing the amount of experience you have. That may have worked in the past, but you have to do better to be competitive in a modern job search. Without demonstrating results, how do they know that you haven’t been doing the same thing over-and-over throughout your career? The answer is they don’t. Instead, provide results (especially those that are quantifiable) that are sure to impress.
You may also be interested in more information about how to determine the right length for your resume.
Shelley Piedmont is a job search coach. She wants to help job seekers put their best foot forward by providing the tools for a successful job search. If you need career coaching, resume preparation, interview skills assessment, or LinkedIn profile assistance, she can help. Schedule a 15-minute no-obligation consultation.
