Over 40 Job Seeker? Your Personal Brand Is Too Weak

One of the challenges that age 40, 50 and 60+ job seekers face is that your personal brand is too weak.

You've been taught by people that you trusted (friends/mentors, career coaches, outplacement advisors, and professional resume writers) to create a resume first impression that you're qualified, with a goal of getting past recruiter screening. So, you include many things you can do, and ask employers "Do you need any of these?"

This creates a confusing first impression with too low of a goal, because being qualified doesn't make you interesting to hiring managers ... it makes you average. And an average age 40+ job seeker appears expensive and weak (but it's described by employers as "overqualified").

When you do this in your resume, you're also creating a weak first impression during interviews, because this is how you think about the intro to describing yourself. Your "elevator speech" and answers to initial interview questions include a bunch of experiences and skills, hoping you'll appear qualified.

Because recruiters screen out unqualified candidates, the only resumes and interviews the hiring manager sees are all qualified. So why would you think branding yourself as only qualified would give the first impression that you're anything other than average, in the hiring manager's eyes?

Almost all age 40+ job seekers do similar things, creating a weak, confusing first impression, with too low of a goal. This not only reduces the odds that you'll move forward in the hiring process, but it greatly increases the risk that your search will take much longer than you want. And if you're also in career transition, it's one of the mistakes that long term unemployed job seekers make.

The good news is that you don't have to take bad advice. You can vastly improve the personal brand you present employers in your resumes and interviews.

Want to learn how?

I help people solve the most difficult job search problems, including job search acceleration, getting past ATSs, ageism, remote positions, product/job function/career/industry/ geographic change, unemployment, "bouncy" recent career path, job search turnaround, seeking raise/promotion, industry in decline/consolidation, long term gaps, family leave, or other of the most challenging job search issues.

Join me Thursday mid-day 10/31/24 at 1:00pm ET/10:00am PT or Saturday morning 11/2/24 at 11:00am ET/8:00am PT for my free Resume Webinar - Beating Job Search Ageism (enroll at https://x.resumewebinar.com/Registration for no charge) to learn how to overcome job search ageism and find your next job by year-end 2024.

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