Is Your Personal Brand Making Ageism Worse - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Is Your Personal Brand Making Ageism Worse - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career You wouldnt brand yourself as inflexible, non-current, stuck in your ways, unwilling to adapt new skills, tired, out of touch, retired-on-the-job, unmanageable, unwilling to take constructive feedback, or overpriced would you? Well, you certainly wouldnt brand yourself this way on purpose. Yet thats exactly what many 40+ job seekers do, without realizing it. Could your personal brand amplify negative feelings about your age? Could your personal brand actually be contributing to the ageism that employers direct towards you, making it difficult for you to find your next job? Here are 6 negative age-related perceptions your personal brand may be causing: You focus on years of experience: To an employer actively searching for more senior candidate, drawing attention to your years of experience might be a good thing. However, few employers value number of years of experience as they once did. Today, employers are more interested in the value youve provided and the problems youve solved, over your years of experience. To many employers, a focus on years of experience implies that you have few results to brag about giving the perception that you maybe havent tried that hard during all those years. Youre out of touch: When you describe your experience using old-school terminology, phrases and jargon, you can give the perception that youre out of touch. For example, if your company used an older enterprise or accounting system, dont brag about it Dont even mention it. If your last employer is using manufacturing processes that arent cutting edge, dont bring it up in your resume. Even if youre Gods gift to marketing and can prove it with the fact that you invented the Happy Meal, mentioning that accomplishment makes you seem out of touch. Youre not technologically current: When you send a paper resume or fax it to an employer, you give the impression that you dont understand email. When you refuse to have a Facebook profile based on principal, you appear technologically backwards. When you use an AOL email account for your job search, you appear like youre stuck in the 90s. When you list a fax number on your resume (believe it or not, many people still do this), youre a blast from the past. Just the other day, a candidate asked me if she should print her resume on fancy paper in a different color how awfully 70s of you. Your skills are stale: If youre trying to show an employer how qualified you are for a job because you did the same job 10 years ago youre giving the employer the impression that your skills are stale. Hiring managers dont remember what they had for lunch last week so why would they believe youll be more effective as a candidate with current experience when your experience is 10 years prior? If youve been out of work for the past few years, how can you expect an employer to think your skills are as sharp as someone who has been working during that time? Youre not hands on: If youve been managing a large staff for the past few years, you give the impression that youre not hands-on too far removed from doing the work, because youve managed it for so long. If you dont mention that youre adept with tools like the components of Microsoft Office, you give the impression that youll need someone else to write reports for you, to do spreadsheet analysis for you and to create presentations for you. Most businesses today require managers who can both manage and work hands on as part of the team plus be self sufficient enough to do their own reports and presentations. Your best years are behind you: When you take up a lot of resume space describing details of what you did 10, 15, 20 years ago, you give the impression that your best years are behind you. Back to the example of the Happy Meal inventor (yes, its a real client example) Why would a hiring manager want to hire someone who brands themselves as all washed up? Thats how you brand yourself when you put emphasis and include a great deal of detail about the early part of your career. You dont have to let your age stand in the way of your career. Often, its not your ageits how you present your age that causes you to lose opportunities. Next week, well talk about how to change your personal brand to combat ageism. Author: Phil Rosenberg is President of http://www.reCareered.com, a leading job search information website and career coaching service. Phil also runs the Career Central group, one of Linkedin’s largest groups for job seekers and has built one of the 20 largest personal networks on Linkedin globally. An active blogger about social media, career advice and job search information, Phil’s articles have been published by The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, CNN, CBS, AOL, FastCompany, CIO, ZDnet, The Examiner, and leading job/career/recruiting publications and sites. Check out one of Phil’s complimentary job search webinars at http://ResumeWebinar.com.