In job search, people sometimes assume that they will be discriminated against because of their age. But I think that some candidates get passed up for others because they lack relevance. Maybe they don’t mesh well with the culture of a company with a demographic that skews younger, or their management style isn’t in sync with the needs of their younger subordinates. Perhaps their skills aren’t up to date or they are resistant to incorporate relevant social media and collaborative web-based project management tools into the way they do their job.

Perhaps we can all take a lesson from Betty White. Because whether you are 25, 35, 45, 55, or older you won’t be the right person for the job if you can’t prove you are relevant to a prospective employer’s needs.

Check out my earlier tribute to Betty White and 5 tips for remaining relevant in your career on AOL Jobs.

1. You think there is one acceptable resume format for your industry. I hear this a lot. “In my industry we don’t use resume profiles” or “No one in my industry ever writes a resume that is more than one page.” Usually these “rules” are perpetuated by people who have been using the same format for their resume since they graduated from college ten or more years ago. What worked then won’t necessarily work now. Or they are perpetuated by people who have gotten used to reading resumes that all look the same so they no longer question their value or relevance in today’s market.
2. You think that because you are confident in your writing abilities you can write a good resume. Sure it helps to have a strong command of the English language. But resume writing is less about the actual writing and more about the strategy than many people realize. A resume writer can look at your background objectively, analyze any potential obstacles in your search, and create a strategy that emphasizes your overarching accomplishments and doesn’t dwell on your more difficult to explain roles and transitions.
3. You think using visual elements on a resume is weird. Many of us are used to seeing PowerPoint presentations where charts, graphs, and other visuals are used to create engagement and communicate information succinctly. Why would you think that a presentation of your candidacy should be any different? Visual elements can differentiate you from your competitors, convey a lot of quality information in less space, and position you as a savvy communicator. Here’s an example of a more visual resume.
4. You are using a resume template to convey how special you are. A resume is all about showcasing your unique value. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by using a stale Microsoft resume template to explain your unique value proposition.
5. You have copied and pasted your previous job descriptions into your resume. The reality is that people in similar jobs perform similar job tasks. An accountant in company A may not have job tasks that are that different than the accountant in company B. Yet the value that each brings to their organization may be totally unique. Minimize content about job tasks and focus on more compelling accomplishments.
6. You don’t show a clear connection between your past achievements and your future direction. If your resume merely represents your chronology it may be difficult for a hiring manager to understand how your past experience relates to their current position. This is especially true if you are trying to transition to a new job function or industry. Your resume needs to be idiot proof. Be sure to connect the dots between past performance and future value to the organization (I recommend a profile at the top of the resume to accomplish this). No one will connect the dots for you. Take the time to create a clear roadmap from past accomplishments to future value.
7. You have no clue what keywords are. Keywords are the buzzwords or industry terminology that is relevant to your job function or industry. You can source keywords by reviewing job descriptions for positions you would consider applying to and looking for the consistency in these keywords from posting to posting. Many employers use ATS or Applicant Tracking Systems to source candidates and they will only find your resume if the words in your resume correlate to those posted in their job specs.
8. You are uploading a Word version of your resume into a database that requires a text version. Many people make the mistake of taking their formatted Word document and uploading it into a text box on a company website. The format is generally not preserved when you do this and your document will end up looking sloppy and unprofessional. Here are instructions on how to create a text resume.
9. Your resume is made up of big blocks of text that no one wants to read. Imagine going to a website looking for information and being confronted with a homepage with a huge paragraph of text. Would you stay on the site and read everything word for word or would you quickly navigate away in search of a site that enabled you to find the information you are looking for quickly. My guess is you would opt for the later. People who read resumes feel the same way. If they have to muddle through big chunks of text to figure out if you are a potential fit for their job, they will probably navigate away from your resume quickly. Use bullets, bold, shading, or text boxes to highlight critical information and help your reader figure out what you are all about in just a few seconds.
10. Your resume is overwhelming to the reader. If your resume is more than two pages it probably fits into this category. Examine your resume and edit, edit, edit. Do you really need to list the 7 management classes you took in 1987 now that you have been a CEO for the past 10 years? Do you really need to dedicate a full page to your employment experience before 1990? Probably not. Frequently with resumes, less is more.

1. Update your resume. The last week of December was one of my busiest weeks ever. People who had no expectations of being sourced for a position and interviewed called me in a frenzy because they had to put a resume together pronto. You never know when someone will want to speak to you about a great opportunity. Update your resume before you need it and keep a list of running accomplishments throughout the year so if someone wants to see your resume quickly you will be ready.
2. Stop ignoring Facebook as a job search tool. I speak to job seekers every day and ask them if they use Facebook as part of their networking and  job search strategy. Usually they snicker or say, “I just use Facebook for personal relationships.” Job search is about all relationships…personal and professional. You never know where your next job lead will come from. Embrace the gray area and blur the lines. A friend is just as likely to introduce you to a great connection as a business colleague. Use tools like BranchOut and BeKnown to optimize your chances of finding key people via the Facebook platform.
3. Invest in a professional photo. With the explosion of social media sites, the expectation is that your photo will accompany your profile. If no photo is there people wonder why. By investing in a professional photo, you can ensure the best angle and lighting and be able to select from multiple shots. And some photography studios can help with hair, makeup, and wardrobe choices. Some can even Photoshop out certain imperfections from the shot.
4. Update your wardrobe. You don’t need to make a huge investment. A new jacket, tie, sharp scarf, pin or something similar might be all you need. If your look screams 1985, you could give hiring managers the impression that your skills are stuck in that era as well. Find a style savvy friend to help you update your wardrobe or hire an image consultant to get you on the right track.
5. Join a professional association. Many job opportunities are shared through professional associations. Why post a job to thousands of strangers when you can go to your internal colleagues and advisors and quickly source the best candidates? Being involved in a professional association helps you become part of the inner circle in your professional community.
6. Let someone pick your brain. Perhaps you read the recent Forbes article, No You Can’t Pick My Brain, It Costs Too Much recommending you be cautious about giving free advice because doing so means you are devaluing your knowledge. I disagree. Giving free advice could mean more opportunities in the future. Spend 20 minutes with someone to help them resolve an issue and they will remember it. And you will be on the top of their list of people to help in the future. It’s possible for someone to pick your brain without them siphoning your entire knowledge base. Don’t be stingy with information.
7. Give kudos. Offer endorsements via LinkedIn and other social media sites to people whose work you know and trust. This will keep you top of mind with your network and increase the likelihood that people will in turn help you when you are seeking advice and information.
8. Make time for lunch. We get so wrapped up in work and other priorities that we forget to take time to socialize during the work day. The lunch hour is a time to reconnect with people, share advice, and gather information. This is a critical aspect of career management. The more people that know you and the more people know about you, the greater the likelihood that someone will be able to assist you with some aspect of your career in the future. And if you’ve been spending your lunch hour with the same 2 people for the past 5 years, now’s the time to change that and branch out your inner circle.
9. Buy a piggy bank. For many job seekers money is tight. They forgo a promising networking event or dues for a professional association membership due to the cost. They may fail to realize that for every week that they make poor job search decisions they stay unemployed longer and lose valuable income. Inquire about “in-transition” rates for professional organizations. Some don’t advertise these cost reductions aggressively but do offer a reduced rate for in-transition professionals.
10. Learn something new. What’s trending in your industry? Which of your skills are rusty? What gaps are there between your skills and the needs of your industry? Gaining education doesn’t have to be expensive and doesn’t necessarily require a formal education. Read industry publications, follow the blogs of industry thought leaders, or make an investment in a class or degree program if you think it is warranted.

Here’s to your career in 2012 and beyond!

Job Search Advice

Common Interview Questions and What They Mean

Resume Writing Tips For Susan Lucci and Others Who Haven’t Written a Resume in 40 Years

Ask the Job Search Coach: How Can I Get a Raise?

Career Advice From the Class of 2015

Changing Careers: Look Before You Leap

Rants

The Real Reason Why Most LinkedIn Profiles Suck

Working Women Need Wives

Breastfeeding Breaks at Work: How Far Have We Really Come?

Working Mothers and Letting Go of the Guilt

Just for Fun

Handshake Horror Stories

Funny Job Postings

Outrageous Interview Blunders

Lying to Get a Job: 9 Famous Fibbers

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Other Famous Affairs With the Boss

The concept that less is sometimes more is also a growing trend in resume writing which has been equally influenced by an information overloaded society that wants their content fast and in digestible sound bites. I’ve long been a proponent of shorter, tighter, writing, void of bloated summary paragraphs that espouse a candidate’s nebulous personal attributes or blocky chunks of text to describe mundane job responsibilities. Instead I favor concise bullets that communicate compelling actions and tangible results to support a person’s candidacy and most recruiters and hiring managers I talk to feel the same way.

The concept of less is sometimes more became most evident to me last year following my father’s passing. My father was cremated and we were instructed that we could have a message on the stone but were limited to just ten characters. At first this sounded like such a daunting task. How do you possibly sum up a man’s life in ten characters or less? But we quickly came up with numerous words that expressed our feelings and selected the simple word “beloved.” Accurate, to the point, and 3 characters to spare. Perfect for my father, a less is sometimes more kind of guy.

More is not necessarily better. Whether you are writing your resume, sending a networking email, applying to college, or remembering a loved one, sometimes fewer words are actually more powerful.

But have you ever stopped to think why job seekers include these words on their profile? Because if you look at 99% of the job postings out there, the job descriptions are filled with useless references to personal attributes. So job seekers have little information to go on and they opt for matching their resumes and profiles to the lousy descriptions they see in the job postings.

I recently did a random search of job postings in three different fields at three different professional levels. None of the descriptions conveyed much of anything about the type of person the company was seeking past the difficult to measure, subjective personal attributes. In other words, all the job descriptions sucked. Let’s take a closer look.

For a sales position:

The ideal candidate is an aggressive go-getter and results driven with excellent communication and presentation skills; capable of multi-tasking; dependable, flexible, organized, friendly, and professional; and willing to travel (40% overnight). Three or more years of sales experience is preferred and previous sales experience in medical or software sales is a plus.

For a business analyst

Effective Communication Skills.
Ability to communicate with all areas of the company, deliver information to executives, and work with Applications, Program Management and Operations team members to define user requirements.
Possesses excellent time management, prioritization and organizational skills.
Ability to execute project management and work plan development activities.
Has a passion for manufacturing.

For a CEO

excellent verbal communication skills which allow clear articulation of mission, purpose, direction and results
poise and comfort in public communication addressing and presenting to clients and employees alike
possess a competitive results oriented nature
strategic thinker
a self managed individual
creative in identifying and using resources
possess a high work ethic and energy level with the ability to sustain heavy work loads and deal with the pressure and stress created in dynamic healthcare environments
high personal integrity

I rest my case…It’s amazing to me that employers frequently complain that they can’t find quality candidates when few take the time required to articulate their business needs in a concrete, measurable way. So what they get instead are a bunch of applicants that added words like creative problem solver to their profile because that’s what the employer said they needed.

It’s time for employers to invest in the resources necessary to create clear job postings with specific and measurable expectations of applicants. And maybe once that is achieved, the cycle of overused buzzwords will dissipate, fewer people will have LinkedIn profiles (and resumes) that suck, and employers will start to uncover quality candidates for their open positions.

A resume is a marketing tool and I encourage job seekers to position their accomplishments in the best possible light. However, it is critical that all information reported on the document is accurate and something you can back up with facts if questioned. Here are some of the ways I see job candidates crossing the line of ethical resume writing practices and some suggestions for creating a more authentic presentation of your qualifications.

Exaggerated results.
Never make up business results assuming no one will be able to validate them. You must be able to back up any information you write on your resume with proof during the interview. But this does not mean that you must have exact figures in order to mention the accomplishment on the resume. It is fine to show results with approximate dollars, percentages, or numbers as long as you can have a discussion around how these results were achieved. The goal is to show impact, not statistics. For example, if you know you used to spend at least 4 hours per week on a particular task and you then automated the process and it is now done in the click of a button, it is fine to say that you decreased time spent on this task by 4 hours or that you virtually eliminated the time spent on this task.

Claiming full ownership of a project.
Frequently our accomplishments are achieved as part of a team effort. Never claim full ownership of a large-scale initiative if the results should be attributed to the team. Use phrases such as “as part of a team”, “co-producer”, “co-author”, etc. to clearly communicate your value without misrepresenting your achievements.

Making up job titles.
If you were in a director role, don’t state that you were the SVP. However if your job title was not truly representative of your responsibilities, consider tweaking the title to make it more relevant or putting an alternative title in parenthesis.

Fudging dates.
Don’t alter dates to make a gap look shorter. Most hiring authorities are interested in the number of years you were employed at an organization, not the months and years, so consider just using years to record your chronology, but be prepared to discuss the exact dates if asked. If the gap spans a year or more, create a clear explanation of what you were doing during that time period right on the resume. For example if you were caring for your children or a sick parent, be transparent and say that on the resume

Listing a degree you never earned.
Information on degrees is pretty easy to verify. If you attended college but didn’t graduate, list the course of study, school name, and location, but leave the degree off.

Putting jargon on your resume you can’t support.
If you have added keywords to your resume to describe your competencies, make sure you know the meaning of those keywords and can explain them during an interview. Don’t just copy them from a job posting or someone else’s resume because they “sounded good.” You will compromise your credibility with the hiring authority if you can’t speak to everything on your resume.

1. Objectives
Most hiring managers I talk to are not interested in reading resume objectives. Frequently objectives sound very cliched and they rarely communicate what a candidate can do for an employer.
Instead, use a professional summary that outlines your competencies and proves how you can help solve business problems.

2. Months of employment
Generally, employers are only interested in knowing the year you started and ended employment with a company. Reporting the exact month along with the year is unnecessary. The exception to this rule is if you have been with a company for less than two years. In that case include the month and year so they can accurately gauge how many months you were employed in a short-tenure position.

3. References
The term “references available upon request” is dated and unnecessary on the resume. Employers know that you will supply references if asked.

4. Hobbies
Unless you have a hobby that is in some way related to your job target, it’s usually best not to mention these. The fact that you enjoy reading and traveling is rarely of interest to the hiring manager.

5. Your picture
In a U.S. job market, pictures should not be included on a resume. Hiring managers legally cannot consider your picture in determining if you are to be interviewed or hired, and many companies won’t even consider resumes that are submitted with a picture to ensure they are in compliance with Equal Opportunity Employer legislation.

6. Salary
Including salary information on your resume generally works against you. When included, a hiring manager may use this information to benchmark whether or not the candidate falls within the salary range of their open position. Since a past salary is only an indication of your earnings in a particular job at a particular point in time, it really isn’t an accurate reflection of what you should be paid in another job.
If you apply to an open job and they request a salary history, list a salary range in your cover letter instead to give you a bit more wiggle room if you are called in for an interview.

7. Your GPA
Generally, as you gain work experience, your GPA becomes irrelevant to hiring managers. No one will care if you had a 3.8 GPA in 1992 if you can’t prove recent success in the positions you have held.
Unless you are a recent college graduate, keep your GPA off of your resume. And if you are a recent college graduate, only include your GPA if it is a 3.0 or better.

1. Be transparent. If there is a gap on your resume, explain it on the document itself. If you don’t explain the reason for the gap, we will draw our own conclusions.
2. Use a chronological format over a functional format. I will assume you are hiding something if you submit a purely functional resume. Recruiters need to understand all the movement in your career. If dates are missing or if your resume focuses too much on functional skills to downplay the chronology we will become suspicious.
3. Don’t apply to every job posting. Only apply to those jobs that you truly meet the qualifications for. Applying to jobs you are not qualified for is a waste of both your time and ours.
4. Don’t call incessantly to follow up on a job posting. If you don’t hear from me, I have nothing to tell you.
5. Drop the resume objective. Include a summary on your resume explaining how you can add value to the organization, rather than an objective explaining what you are looking for. Hiring managers aren’t interested in what you are looking for; they are interested in people who can solve their business problems.
6. Add a competency or skills section to your resume. Make it easy to figure out what your core skills are. We need to know right away if you have the basic skill set to do the job.
7. Get rid of the entitlement act. Don’t assume you will get a certain salary just because you ask for it. We are willing to negotiate if it is within our budget.
8. Don’t upload a Microsoft Word document into the text box of our job site. We can’t read it. The formatting is severely compromised when you do this and we will ignore your application. Instead, convert your Word document to a text only file.

Building relationships with recruiters is one way to get closer to landing your next job. If you can learn to appreciate their needs, you will increase your chances of landing more interviews.

Objective: To acquire a creative development position within the entertainment industry that would utilize my vast (2 years) technical experience.

Reasons for leaving the last job: Responsibility makes me nervous.

Job Responsibilities: Maintained files and reports, did data processing, cashed employees’ paychecks.

Personal Interests: I like the Simpsons.

Education: Completed 11 years of high school.

Qualifications: I often use a laptop.

Skills & Accomplishments: Proven ability to track down and correct erors.

Additional Experience: I am writing to you, as I have written to all Fortune 1000 companies every year for the past three years, to solicit employment.

Happy Halloween!