By Bob Brewster

Yesterday I met an old friend for coffee. He had taken early retirement at age fifty six and is now sixty two. He told me the past six years were very good for him and his family but now he needed to start working again. There were several reasons given for this and they were not all financial. It seems that he still had a real need to feel productive and liked the idea of contributing toward helping a new idea or business become successful. The money was also important because he found that he still wanted to do things with his family that required more money than what he could afford to take from his retirement savings.

Our conversation jumped around on various ideas for what he could do to get back into the workforce. One subject was his resume. It seems that there is a lot of opinion today regarding whether a person with a lot of experience really needs to complete resume or just a brief summary. One expert,Jill Konrath, has found resumes to be detrimental and after reading her book "Get Back to Work Faster", I had to agree with her in advising my friend. However, even though my friend agreed that his resume needed to be a lot shorter, he could not come to the conclusion that he did not need one at all. So we compromised and agreed that he would create a 'summary' in lieu of a resume.

Here are some rules we decided to follow for his resume "summary".

Updating your resume or creating a Resume Summary

As an older experienced worker, you have a lot to share from your background. The problem is that even though this is very important to you, it is probably not important, at least not at first, to an employer or business owner. The challenge is how to select what in your background you need to take out and what to leave in.

Since a resume is a reflection of you, it is also your chance to make an impression in a few short seconds that you will be allowed. Yes, that's correct. Even with all your experience and education, you will have maybe 10-15 seconds to make an impact statement about yourself before your resume hits the proverbial "circular file." This is a big challenge and if not carefully handled, it will result in a lot of frustration for you.

This 'screening' process is unfair at best but that is the way things are handled today. Unless you can personally hand your resume to the hiring decision maker while looking them in the eye as you state your reasons why they need to hire you, you are just a another name flashing before the screener's eyes.

Your resume summary by choice needs to be short, to the point and well written. It must be carefully proofread for even the slightest error in grammar or spelling will destroy its effectiveness. Additionally, you may need to create several versions of your resume summary with each version geared specifically toward the industry, job or employer you are approaching. Having a "one size fits all" resume is no longer an option for it requires too much reading and digging from the screener.

Additional tips for the Resume Summary

1. Have your name, address and telephone number at the top of the page. Include your e-mail address if you have one.

2. Do not include career objectives. They can be given in your cover letter or an email where your resume is attached. Always use a cover letter of some type that is very brief about your professional history and accomplishments.

3. Your resume summary must be positive and to the point. Use as few words as possible and never exceed one page. You are not writing a book or novel. This is not an autobiography about your self. Do use the word 'I' and keep all paragraphs short.

4. Leave out all personal information such as height, weight, medical condition, marital status, date of birth, hobbies, etc. These are irrelevant to the screening process and may even cause you to get "kicked" out.

5. Only use experience from your past 10-15 years or 3-4 employers. Avoid using dates. These again will be used against you in the screening process and are not necessary at this point.

6. List educational institutions in reverse chronological order. It is not necessary to list date of attendance or graduation.

7. Your resume summary does not need a list references or even the statement "References Available Upon Request."

8. Leave out any statement for leaving past positions or statements that could have a negative inference.

9. Leave out salary history or requirements. Your cover letter can address this by stating that you would be glad to discuss it at an interview.

10.Proofread your resume for spelling or grammatical errors. Ask someone else to proofread to too. Most mistakes are not obvious to the writer and usually stick out like a huge 'smudge mark' on the paper to an employer.

Making you Resume Summary one page in length is extremely important. Using bullet paragraphs will help you accomplish this. Also, you can break your summary into parts. Here are four parts as a suggestion -

1. Heading - Your name and contact information and a brief statement of what you want to accomplish, if hired.

2. Industries - A bullet list of industries or company names where you gained your experience. (This is a list not a paragraph on each, only a line.)

3. Professional Skills- You bullet list what you do best and what special skills you have as assets to accomplish them. (Writing, speaking, computer programs, presentation, leadership, CDL driver, RN, MD, etc.) Thinks about those things that are assets in any employment position.

4. Past Significant Accomplishments- You bullet list your education, past positions where you had significant accomplishment, like "helped take program from $10 million to over $100 million in five years", or 'helped launch new division that successfully resulted in 100 new employees and profitability' or any recognition you may have received from industry, community or civic organizations. Do you hold a record for something? Received a special award? Remember, these are bullet lines so you must hit your target each time without "fluff" or extra words.

That's it!

In summary, the days of resumes with your entire life condensed to several pages of tiny hard to read print are over. Today's employment seeker must be brief, to the point and able to communicate in only a few words the benefit he or she is bringing to the employer or business. Do not worry about the rest of details. They will come out as you progress through the screening process. Good luck!