Help with CV - over 50

[Fallenangelofthenorth]

I'm in the process of rewriting my CV as my current one is spectacularly falling flat. In my 40s I found I was invited for interview for pretty much everything I applied for. Now at the age of 50 something I'm getting rejection after rejection after rejection. I appreciate the market has probably changed somewhat but even when there are under 10 applicants I'm still rarely being invited for interview.

I've spoken to recruiters and been advised to update my cv and take off my date of birth, dates of my qualifications and summarise my work history beyond the last 3 jobs, which is everything before 2007. I'm struggling with how to show this. If I delete it altogether then recruiters might think I'm only 33 and they'll be in for a right shock when I rock up for interview! Plus I'm an accountant and qualified at KPMG which is a plus point so I'd want to get that included in my cv.

What's the best way to include my work history from 1989 to 2007 without adding an extra 3 pages to my cv? Really struggling with this, so I'd appreciate any help I can get.

Thanks for all the tips and advice. I've rewritten it now and got it on to 2 (ish) pages. It's actually 3 but last page I'm not really fussed about as it's just hobbies so might ditch that.

I'm relatively happy with it so will see if this generates more interest. If it doesn't then I'm going to pay someone to do it like @Ohwhatakerfuffle. I wish I'd just done that yesterday to be honest, but I've done it now so will trial it until the end of March.

Thanks!

Leave off anything that counts as personal data in GDPR terms so dob, address etc.

Leave dates off education & only list the priority academic achievements which are relevant.

The last 10 years of employment are those which really count so focus detail on them. I have left early career jobs off my CV as they add nothing to the cause - mine CV starts when I was 32.

Definitely add a personal summary at the top with a high level outline of your career and personal achievements, and what you can bring to the role.

At the end of the day they want to know what you can bring to the role, not your life\career story.

I had a one page CV, saw advice saying if you have more than 10 years experience then you can go to 2 pages. So I redid it. I gave that one to a recruter and asked if he had any advice for me. The only thing he said to change was to keep the CV to one page only.

What do you think is going to be gained by sharing your hobbies? In the public sector we recruit name blind and the names of organisations are excluded too, although some candidates try to circumnavigate the system, e.g. a recent graduate who included an example of organising a May Ball.

Placemarking as I feel clueless about CVs
Agree things seem to have changed a lot in the last 10 years. In the past recruiters wanted all dates accounted for so its odd to move on from that.

I have no mention of O levels as that obviously ages me, and have taken off the A level grades (kept the subjects) as although the grades were v respectable they possibly don't seem it with grade inflation.

I’ve have my CV reviewed with an outsourcing company as part of my redundancy. They said to remove ‘xx years experience’ as it just suggests you are old and introduces unconscious bias. No tables etc either - keep format very simple so it matches ATS screening.

put a list of your key skills and have only 9-10 key skills there. have a master CV with all key skills on it and reduce it to 9-10 depending on the requirements of the job.

@LadyLapsang I think at best my interests would be something that might be used as a talking point in an interview if perhaps the interviewer was also interested in cooking or followed the same football team. I've included that section because I've always had it there, plus I followed the advice on this recruiters website:

https://www.michaelpage.co.uk/advice/career-advice/cover-letter-and-cv-advice/cv-template

I don't think I'd be applying for any public sector roles to be honest. And definitely no charities either. I think it's pretty common for the types of roles I'm applying for, for them to check out my Linkedin profile so definitely not anonymous.

Definitely remove date of birth and dates attended uni. Instead you could state you got a 2:1 in X from X University. You then secured work with KPMG and remained in post for X years before gaining Chartered status. After that you moved to X to develop your career. State what experiences you have obtained eg green book experience. So basically you give no clue as to your age. If you do it will be used against you. Include key skills any projects you led or modelling experience. Also include if you have experience of managing other staff and how many. Did you develop your staff? If so how. Which piece of work are you most proud of? Explain why. Did you have to overcome tricky barriers? Show your skill in handling people and situations. A CV should not be more than 2 sides of A4.

I don't have anything to add, but great tips here. I have a lot of "old" experience on my CV but realise I need to make it more concise and up to date.

The biggest issue is that, by the time you get to our age (for those over 50), your cv is likely to be read by either a machine, or by someone who is under 30 and won't read long sentences or big words. Harsh, but unfortunately true.

Date of birth and photos should never be on CVs.

I summarised all my early jobs and experience into one very short paragraph. No birth date and no dates attached to education / early jobs.

I can't stand skills based CVs - the ones that only show skills. Often they give no indication of how much experience has been gained in a particular skill or industry, it's just words, and often people include skills or systems they have worked on for 5 mins. At least if you tell me the role and duration, I can get a sense of how experienced you are in that area.

I think you need to cut down even further if you can.

Good luck.

I've applied for 12 different roles now with my new updated cv so let's hope this one generates more interest. I've not removed all dates so it's still obvious I'm at least middle aged. I haven't put a photo on my CV but I have put a photo on my LinkedIn profile which is an extremely flattering one and hopefully gives the impression I'm 40 something rather than 50 something.

If I still don't get anywhere then I've found a service that will do my cv, LinkedIn profile and covering letter template for 200 quid.

I have had mixed results with professional cv writers. I've had them twice, both disagreed with each other, and the recruiters change them anyway. £200 isn't too expensive, especially for LinkedIn as well. Please would you PM me their details?

A good way to get unstuck with cv writing for free is to us the chatgpt website- ask it to generate a cv for the role ( using jd) you’re interested in.
use that as a starting point.
similarly linkedin profiles- but DONT use it wholesale.

I uploaded my cv onto cv library who when you register ask if you want your CV reviewing so I ticked "yes".

They came back with loads of suggestions that you can implement yourself or pay them different prices depending on the package you want. I started filling out the 200 quid offer but then didn't checkout and the next day got another offer for 20% off. I did implement the changes they suggested myself, but they would probably have done it better, and I've still not updated my LinkedIn profile. In retrospect I wish I'd asked them to do it as I spent A LOT of time faffing and it took me a lot longer than I thought it would.

Update:

Of the 12 roles I applied for, I've been shortlisted for one and have 5 scheduled calls for tomorrow but 4 of those are just with recruiters so they may or may not put me forward. That's STILL a much, MUCH better response than previously.

I can't say it's all due to taking off ageing details, as my previous CV I now realise was shit compared to this one.

Amazing result!!! I hope you get an offer please give us another update when the time comes.

Thanks @SleepQuest33. Really hope that's sometime soon as I cannot put into words how much I loathe and detest my current job

I did a skills based CV at 50. Front page was summary para, my skills split across several headings (accountant so financial accounting/tax/projects/team management from memory)
Then listed employers on the next couple of pages with a couple of lines so experience on front page could be linked to role.
It was really easy to update for each role as I just changed order/text on front page and there wasn't duplication of experience between roles.
Not all recruiters like the style, but it worked for me.

That's amazing @Fallenangelofthenorth! Hope something comes through soon

All the jobs I applied for required application forms plus a personal statement explaining why you met the criteria. I did get interviewed for every position, only offered current position though

I'm not really finding that in the majority of the roles I've applied for. The only ones where I've had to do that have been NHS, Multi Academy Trusts and a Charity, but I've decided I don't really want to work in any of those sectors because I don't have any experience of the first two and I already work in a charity and hate it!

I've been mainly applying for roles on indeed with the odd one or two on CV Library and Totaljobs. I'm not looking for particularly high level jobs either - certainly no director roles - so maybe you were going in at a higher level than me.

I used a cv writing service once, I somehow ended up doing most of it myself, they really did not add much.

I do have a book ‘knock out cv’ by John Lees which is actually very good. It stood me in good stead a few years ago & much better than the cv writing service.

leave off hobbies - no interviewer will ask about this these days. Only include relevant qualifications- no GCSE’s \a levels etc

I'm in a similar position with the added complication that I haven't worked for about 18 months since I was made redundant and I am trying to move to a different career (in which I do have some transferable skills). Only just started looking but realised my CV needs a bit of a rejig, so I've chopped the dates off my qualifications and removed everything before about 2013 with a "prior to" summary section. If I get an interview it will still be pretty obvious I'm 50 though.