Why Hide When You're An Age 40+ Job Seeker?

You may not even realize that you're hiding. But if you're an age 40+ job seeker, you probably hide a few things.

And the things you're hiding hurt your job search, make employer ageism worse, and encourage hiring managers to hire someone other than you.

Here are examples of things most age 40+ job seekers hide in their resume (and often in interviews too):

1. Hiding Your Age: Most age 40+ job seekers have been taught to hide age on your resume, by excluding early career, early career dates and graduation dates. Applicant Tracking Systems can catch this and human review can easily see these exclusions and screen you out - It makes recruiters and hiring managers wonder "What are you hiding and why?". Hiding early career/graduation dates cause you to present the early part of your career in the same way as candidates who try to hide jail time (or other bad things). You portray yourself as a riskier candidate and hiring managers rarely hire risky candidates (because it puts their own career at risk). When you hide your age, you give the initial perception that you're younger than you really are. This backfires when you're in a face-to-face (or video) interview, making interviewers think "What else are you hiding?". You can't build trust when you hide.
2. Hiding The Impact You've Made: This causes you to undersell yourself, but it's not your fault - it's how you've been taught to describe your career. You've been taught to focus your resume/interviews on responsibilities, job descriptions, qualifications, skills and tasks. Employers look for more in more senior candidates for experienced staff, management or executive roles (Why shouldn't they, when they expect you're asking for more than less experienced and less expensive competitors?). Employers look for the impact you've made in past jobs as an indicator of the impact you'll make for them ... but you're hiding this in your resume and interviews.
3. Results Of Hiding: You appear to employers like a risky, untrustworthy, overpriced candidate who hasn't proven they are worth the added cost. You've undersold yourself by focusing on the minimum, but not what employers expect from more experienced and more expensive candidates. You've hidden early career early career dates, and graduation dates, causing employers to perceive additional risk and lack of trust.

Why would an employer pay you more, when you haven't proven that you're worth more or given the impression of being trustworthy? This is the primary reason you lose jobs to less experienced (and less expensive) candidates, or receive feedback that you're overqualified (a legally safer way to say overpriced).

You know you can run circles around less experienced candidates, so why aren't you able to communicate this effectively to employers??

Why hide, when it almost always causes your job search to fail in 2024's highly competitive job market? Good thing there are better ways to beat job search ageism.

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 for my next free Resume Webinar (enroll at https://x.resumewebinar.com/Registration for no charge) and learn how to accelerate your job search, so you can find your next job faster in 2024.

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#resume #jobs #career #ageism