“Packing” your resume with the right amount of the right information is critical. It’s easy to get trapped into thinking that more is better. We have to remember that our resumes are marketing pieces, which ties right into your personal branding expertise. I can’t think of many products or services I bought because I read about the history of its development or read a volume about all of the features and services available. Why would someone hire you based on that same information?

I would add one comment to your post about only including the most recent 10-15 years experience.

I helped a client re-enter an industry he had worked in earlier in his career. In his case, he needed to leverage earlier career work alongside current/recent volunteer work in the health care industry, so I had to include present BOTH recent and past experience in that industry. I used a cluster resume format, in which I “clustered’ his most relevant experience-paid and unpaid-in a professional health care titled section; and his other relevant professional experience in another section of his resume, appropriately titled. The strategy worked very well.

Best,

~Kathy Bitschenauer