Make Your Early Retiree Online Resume Standout

Make you Early Retiree Online Resume Standout from the crowd. Now that you are retired and trying to do the “retire early and often” thing like I have, you will most likely be posting your resume online. Your best shot to land your dream job comes down to having a resume that is solid and effective. When we have worked at a career a long time we have a lot to cram into our resume.

Making Your Early Retiree Online Resume Standout

Is there anything we can do to make our Early Retiree Online Resume Standout in the pile? That pile of applicants a hiring manager or recruiter will look through? According to the results of a study done by Ladders.com called Keeping an eye on recruiter behavior, your chance is short. The person scanning resumes only spends around 6 seconds looking at a resume to before deciding to give it more thought. 6 Seconds is not a long time. It is important to know what makes your Early Retiree Online Resume Standout for all of those 6 seconds so it will be selected.

Heat Map Reveals Recruiter Eye Movement

The study included a heat map of recruiters’ eye movements as they scanned resumes. It gives an idea of what caught their eye for added precious seconds of evaluation.

The resume on the right used a concise and clear format resulting in it being evaluated more thoroughly than the one on the left.

Early Retiree Online Resume Standout-Recruiter eye movement heat map tracking

Image sourced from study

Heat Map Gaze Tracking Results

The study’s “gaze tracking” technology showed that recruiters spent almost 80% of their resume review time on the following 6 data points:

  1. Name
  2. Current Title/Company
  3. Current Position Start and Stop Dates
  4. Previous Title/Company
  5. Previous Position Start and Stop Dates
  6. Education

Aside from these 6 points the recruiter’s attention was no more than a quick scan for keywords matching the open position. Since the recruiter makes a decision based on the 6 data points, everything else is just filler at this stage of the process. This stage is the important stage because fail this and you get no more chances.

Tips to Make your Early Retiree Online Resume Standout

Use a logical format

Your format should have wide margins and clear headings.

Call Attention to your accomplishments with bullets if your resume upload is a Word version or your bullet substitute (+, -, *, etc.) for a text version upload.

Guide the reviewer’s eye with careful use of CAPs or if your resume upload is a Word version your Bold, or Italic type face.

Remember your resume goal

The goal for your resume is to score an interview not get the job. Your interview is what gets you the job.

Size Matters

We may have a lot of accomplishments. But make sure your resume is no more than a couple of pages. If you can squeeze your relevant past work history and achievements on a single page and still look good then do so. It may help your resume get recognized above the thousands of resumes submitted for the same job position.

Use Keywords

Whenever you upload your resume on to a job site where recruiters can find you then keywords are necessary within your resume. If you don’t know what keywords to use just do an online search for the job title you are trying to get. Look at commonly mentioned words and skills.

What About Current Title/Company equals Personal Sabbatical?

Since the study found that two of the six focus points were related to one’s current work situation. There is a good chance that a recruiter who has bias about a retiree taking time off before taking a new opportunity of interest and passion will overlook your resume. That is always the risk those of us who retire early and often take. I look at it this way. If that is their deal then I don’t want to be part of their organization anyway. That is always the benefit of being an early retiree who can be picky and only do work they WANT to do.

In Closing

The recruiter study results shows that your resume only has a few seconds to get their attention. Making your Early Retiree Online Resume Standout from the crowd takes having the right format and a quality resume. When writing your resume ask yourself:

Does it have a clean look?

Are there no grammatical/spelling errors?

Have you clearly and effectively represented all of your pertinent skills and experience?

If you can answer yes to all the above then you have given your resume a better chance of being noticed and selected.