What to Do with Your New Resume for Return-to-Work Success

Are you planning to return to work after a career break? It can feel overwhelming at times when you consider the sheer amount of things you need to get done for a successful job search. One of the most crucial elements of your job search arsenal will be your new resume.

If you want hiring managers and potential employers to overlook your career gap and concentrate on your skills and experiences, you must craft your resume in a well-thought-out manner. Here’s what our certified professional resume writers believe that you should and should not include on your resume for return-to-work success:

What you should include in your resume:

Your paid work history

Create a strong work experience section by mentioning all your relevant and recent paid work experiences. You should aim to build up the work experience section in such a manner that it reflects your career progression through the years. Use your chronological career history to showcase how you have scaled up in skills and responsibilities with age. Make a separate entry for each job and be sure to mention the following details per job:

• Job title
• Company name
• Location
• Relevant years
• Professional achievements

Professional accomplishments

What better way to show potential employers that you are a valuable addition to their team than to dedicate an entire section of your resume to talk about your professional accomplishments? You can also list your professional accomplishments under each job in your employment history on your resume. When listing your achievements on your resume, be sure to employ bullet points. Start each bullet point with an action verb and incorporate adjectives into the narration.

Your education and certifications

Many job seekers earn valuable certifications during their career breaks. Some even take time off from work to focus on higher education. If you followed online courses, professional training, certifications, or higher education programs during your career break, you can emphasize them on your resume. Create separate sections for your educational qualifications and certifications. If you have less experience, you can elaborate on these two sections.

Relevant skills and knowledge areas

One of the most important sections of your resume is the Key Skills section. This is the place on your resume where you can incorporate a large number of keywords. Place your skills section toward the top half of the resume, where hiring managers can see it at first glance. This will help you ace the six-second resume test as well. Use bullet points to highlight 10-15 relevant skills. Always ensure that the skills section aligns with the job description posted by the employer.

A professional summary statement

A career snapshot or a summary statement elevates your resume. This is a short paragraph at the top of your resume that highlights your biggest selling points related to the job. You should incorporate personal branding into your summary statement to make it more effective. Try to provide a quick grasp of who you are and what you bring to the table for potential employers through your summary statement.

What you should not include on your resume:

A career objective

Career objective statements were very common on resumes a few years ago. They only served the purpose of explaining why you are writing this resume to an employer. However, career objectives have become redundant on resumes today because candidates are encouraged to simply list their target job title at the top of the document. This saves valuable resume space and also helps your resume be more ATS-friendly. Instead of a career objective, consider writing a career summary.

Experiences older than 10-15 years

Omitting certain experiences from your resume will help you fight against age discrimination. That is why we always recommend that job seekers only mention a work history of a 10-15-year window when they create their resumes. While older jobs can be important, they usually emphasize skills, experiences, and technologies that are obsolete.

High school graduation dates

If you have higher education qualifications, mentioning your high school diploma or GED on your resume is a redundant move. Earlier schooling does not need to be mentioned in your resume once you have completed tertiary education or certifications. Another important thing is to omit your high school graduation dates if you include the qualifications on your resume. These dates can be used to approximate your age, which is disadvantageous to older candidates.

Unnecessary personal information

Certain personal information like your physical address, religion, age, date of birth, marital status, or gender should have no place on your resume. This personal information has the potential to get you discriminated against in the US job market. They can ultimately end up affecting the hiring decisions of potential employers. Therefore, it is best to scan your resume for any personal information and remove them.

A career objective

If the last time you wrote a resume was years ago, you might be tempted to add a career objective to your resume. While there is nothing inherently wrong with an objective statement, they went out of style on resumes a few years ago because they are redundant. Instead of wasting valuable space on a career objective, you can simply display your target job title on top of your resume to indicate the objective for writing the resume. However, resume objectives are still common on academic resumes, where you may need to go into detail about the purpose of writing your resume. In such a case, add an objective statement that justifies your reasons for applying for the scholarship, grant, or higher education opportunity.

A list of references

Professional references are essential to have when you are applying for a new job. However, they do not have to be a part of your resume. You can display your professional references on a separate document that you share with an employer further down the hiring process. Most often, reference checks happen when the employer is about to arrange an interview for you. Therefore, it is unwise to reserve valuable resume space for references at the initial stages of the job application.