Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, protects workers 40 and older from age discrimination with respect to any aspect of employment:hiring, firing, job assignments, salaries, career advancement, benefits and other aspects. However, age discrimination is difficult to prove, so keep an eye on what you put on your resume. Is there any information on there that gives away your age? Listing a job you started in 1972 might be a bad idea. Look to the obvious. Do not put your birthday, Social Security number or other personal information on your resume. If you live in a community that is well-known as an older community or retirement community, leave off the community name in your address. Many people leave their graduation dates out of the Education section on their resume. The Work History or Professional Experience section and listed skill sets on an executive resume may identify you as an older worker. However, most employers only expect your last 10-15 years of employment history to be listed on your resume, so this in itself may not give away your age. Affiliations and Awards resume sections can also inadvertently give away your age, especially when they are age-related such as The American Association for Retired People (AARP) or lifetime achievement awards. Keep in mind that AARP membership and lifetime achievement awards are given out well before most American people now retire. Not a good idea to list AARP, just don’t do it. The publications section on a curriculum vitae can also give resume readers a clue to your age, especially if it is extensive. This is because you would typically list publication dates for each work you have published. If you have 30 years of published works, your readers may assume that you are at least 50 years of age. 50 isn’t old, but you might want to summarize your earlier works in a paragraph format and omit the dates. Check your resume or curriculum vitae routinely for anything that can easily identify you as an older worker. Do not give an unscrupulous employer any reasons to discriminate against you based on information from your resume or curriculum vitae.
The good news is that there are jobs out there for older workers, so get your resume polished up and go after them!
It is rare to complete a career and retire without one or two work history gaps along the way. Illness, family obligations and unemployment can all take their toll on a career. While some employers may see these gaps as a natural part of a career progression, others may look at your resume and question why you weren’t working. No worries-there are many ways you can easily handle addressing gaps in employment in your career and on your resume.
One way to ensure continuity in your career while dealing with a work history gap is to freelance. You may be able to work on projects at home while caring for a sick loved one. One example of how to list this on your resume:
Freelance Pharmaceutical Project Manager — XYZ City, Maine 1992-1994
Provided project management for the following companies: ABC, DEF, and GHI.
Another way to fill the gap between jobs is to volunteer. When you volunteer, you are still continuing to use skill sets you already have while also learning some new ones. List your work history first on your resume, then prominently list volunteer experience below that. You can make this volunteer experience stand out even more by placing it in a section called Related Volunteer Experience, which can be separate from previous volunteer experiences. A functional resume will also help you to minimize work history gaps. Creating a functional resume reorganizes your career information into a skills summary, or list of keywords that describe your skills sets. A Professional Experience section divided into a few main areas of expertise will emphasize your experience while a reverse chronological Work History section merely lists your employers, the cities in which they are located and dates of employment. Emphasis is placed on your skill sets and experience instead of dates of employment. You could still choose to use the common chronological resume format for your resume, and just list why you were out of work for a certain period. Many people do this when taking care of a very sick loved one. However, many people are not comfortable giving out such personal information on their resume. If this is your situation, simply build your resume with the work information you have, and be prepared to discuss gaps in employment during your interview.
A common problem that many people come across, particularly for those recently graduated and entering the work force, is that their work history is not long enough for them to make a full, complete, and impressive resume. But it is nothing to stress over. You can still have an impressive resume without a long or extensive work history.
The biggest key to having an impressive resume without a long work history is to not create fake jobs or fake references. This is the biggest mistake anyone can make. It will only cause you problems in your search and may cost you multiple job opportunities.
You may want to take a functional resume route. In other words, focus on the skills that you have that will apply to the job you are applying for. You should still include the work history that you have, but the focus of your resume should be on your impressive skills and abilities. The skills would be formatted to look like this in your resume: Auto Mechanic:
Responsible for tune ups, tire changes, and other basic level mechanical work
Worked as an oil change technician for 5 years
Shade tree mechanic for two years
Used Car Sales
Sold pre-owned vehicles on commission for 6 months
Examined vehicles for mechanical problems prior to purchase
Fixed major and minor issues on vehicles before resell
Not only is this a simple format, but it can fill up your resume, make it impressive and professional, and keep you out of future trouble with potential employers.
The United States government provides a plethora ofcareer informationfrom the Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor statistics. The Department of Labor can inform you about Workers’ Compensation, veteran’s assistance programs, disability, retirement, youth employment programs, unemployment, work safety and overtime. Among the Department of Labor’s top 20 requests are information on COBRA health insurance continuation coverage, the Family Medical Leave Act benefits, United States employment statistics, health plans, minimum wage and unemployment insurance. It is a good resource to use when you are not sure about work-related information or your employer has not given you enough information on any of these topics. If you want to make sure that information you have about jobs and working is accurate, the Department of Labor resources can verify it for you. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook provides profiles for many careers that give you job descriptions, educational requirements, median pay, job outlook for particular careers and the number of jobs within that career for a given year. The Occupational Outlook Handbook is one resource to use to find keywords to write a more effective professional resume. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is also an important resource for examining career trends and deciding which career you will choose and what type of education you will need. Statistics on United States productivity, employment and unemployment, pay and benefits, and on the job injuries are also provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Together, the Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor statistics provide valuable government work information to help keep you working or to get you back to work if you have been laid off.
Your standard dream job description may require an average of three to five years of experience when you only have two years of experience.Do you just walk away and do not apply? No, apply anyways. You may be surprised and get at least a phone interview. Pay close attention to the keywords of the job description and ensure that you put them in your resume also. Do not inflate your experience in this field or call attention to your lack of three to five years of experience in a cover letter. There are other things a recruiter looks for aside from number of years of experience. Maybe the job calls for someone who can work tirelessly towards a specific goal for long-term rather than short-term gratification. Or perhaps your background in customer service will be a great add-on to the skill sets required in the position. Personal characteristics, related skill sets and ability to work hours that are different from just the 9 to 5 grind may also make you an attractive candidate. If the recruiter describes the type of person that would fit best into this position, listen carefully, then provide information on why you are that person. Training also counts towards making you the ideal job candidate when you do not have the requisite number of years of work experience. While some managers like to train their new employees from the ground up, realistically, it can be cost prohibitive and time consuming to do so. Arriving with some relevant training can also make starting a new job easier. A flexible, can-do attitude also counts in your favor. If you can be flexible with start dates, hours, where you work, what equipment you do your work on, all of these things can add up to make you the best candidate for the job, even when you do not have the preferred amount of experience.
After spending hours of distributing your resume, here it is.You got an interview. The one and only chance to prove that you are exactly what the company is looking for. Talk about stressful. Here are a few tips that should help you make the most of that first job interview.
The first thing you need to remember is to smile. Not only does it ease the interviewer, but they will take on the attitude you put forth, which will also help to ease your nerves.
Talk confidently. Yes, it is nerve wracking to go to a job interview, but don’t let your interviewer know that you are nervous. When you speak do not use fillers, such as “ummm,” or “hmmm.” Using fillers like those will make it seem like you do not know what you are talking about.
Be yourself. Yes you need to smile and be confident, but do not become someone you are not just for an interview. If you are hired you will be working side by side with these people and they need to know that the person they interview is going to be the same person they get when they hire you.
Practice these things before going into your interview. Think about what are some logical questions they might ask you at the interview and answer them out loud while looking in a mirror so you can make sure that you are smiling. If you think about what you want to say before you say it in the job interview, then you should be able to eliminate those unhelpful fillers.
While there are many other factors that go into securing your job, such as creating a professional and accurate resume before your interview, if you follow these tips they should help you make the most of your interview and, hopefully, help you land the job.
There seems to be a rule of thumb out there that if you land a job you should always try to negotiate for more money as a matter of course. If you’ve done your homework and realize that the salary offer is too low for your level of education and experience, you should at least try to negotiate a higher salary. However, negotiating your salary just because you think you should can hurt you in a number of ways. Contract positions are usually set at a certain rate and are only sometimes negotiable. If you try to negotiate a contract job offer, chances are that you delay many onboarding tasks such as drug screening, background and references checks and getting signed up for benefits. You may also find that the employer still expects you to start on the original date stated in the offer, leaving you scrambling to comply. If you can negotiate your salary higher for other types of positions, you may leave yourself vulnerable to layoff if your salary is higher than your peers’. Your salary may be the first on the cutting block when it is time for your employer to make budgetary cuts. Negotiating a salary higher than what you originally stated you would be willing to take may make a potential employer think that you did not do your salary homework or are trying to get more money just because you think you can. This does not leave the employer with a good impression of you. Of course, you could prevent yourself from being boxed into a corner like this by not giving a specific dollar amount answer to the question, “What are your salary expectations?” If hard-pressed by an interviewer, give a wide salary range because this question is often used as criteria to weed out a large candidate pool.
Job sharing is one way to get work hours flexibility, especially if you need it because of child care or elderly parent responsibilities. My mom did job sharing when I was young. She worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning, and her co-worker worked Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday. Both loved the arrangement and through careful planning, this went on for 15+ years. Sharing a job with another person requires flexibility and good communication skills to keep the work flowing even on the days when you are not at work. This goes beyond good face-to-face communication skills as you have to be able to communicate with the other worker when you are not working at the same time. Email is one type of communication that helps in a job share situation. Being flexible and able to accept phone calls on non-work time is also helpful. Good documentation skills are critical to job sharing. This ensures that the work gets done properly with no mistakes even when you are not there yourself. One example of documentation skills is medical charting for doctors and nurses. The next doctor or nurse should be able to tell what treatment a patient has received and what he will need next. My mom and her co-worker had ‘in’ and ‘out’ boxes so they knew what the other was working on. They also had lots of sticky notes (this was all that was available 30 years ago!). Neatness counts. If you share supplies or equipment, they need to be checked on a regular basis to ensure that you do not run out of anything critical or misplace a needed piece of equipment. Return all equipment to its storage place. Also check for breakage and let the other job sharer know if something is broken so that this person does not try to use it until it is fixed. Job sharing adds critical thinking and planning skill sets to your resume. It also adds documentation skills and communication skills. All of these skills are a bonus, so make sure you indicate on your resume under Work Experience that a position you held was a job share. You can list the position then put in parentheses: (job share, 30 hours per week).
