Resumé Tips for Older Job-Hunters: Include Dates, But Not at the Top

How should older workers emphasize experience on their resumés without also emphasizing their age?

Legal search consultants Valerie Fontaine and Roberta Kass have an answer: Prepare a resumé that begins with a summary of job skills and functions, emphasizing, perhaps, trial experience, legal expertise and kinds of cases handled. After that, list employment history, beginning with the most recent job, Fontaine and Kass write in the National Law Journal. A sample (PDF) is provided.

Lawyers should include dates of their law degree and their past jobs. “Rather than obscuring the fact of your seniority, omitting dates can backfire,” they write. “Prospective employers may either assume that you are trying to hide your age or that you are even older than you are.”

But there’s no need to emphasize age with phrases such as “X years of experience,” they say. And those who list interests on their resumé should emphasize fitness activities and computer interests over bridge club and opera. Rather than listing the presidency of a senior church group, it’s better to simply state "leadership positions in church activity groups."

Related coverage:

ABAJournal.com: "Questions Older Lawyers Should Answer Before Beginning a Job Search"