And it works. Period.

I went through 9 months of unemployment recently coinciding w/ the birth of our first child, much of it was discussed and documented here.

The ONLY traction I made and ALL of the interviews I got (except for one) were through LinkedIn. The traditional PDF / Doc resume with emails, filling out Application forms online through job sites, even companies’ websites directly...all of it was shouting into a gigantic black hole and a colossal waste of time, even as I was feeling I was getting lots of great progress made.

Have someone take a new photo of yourself currently in front of a clean simple background. Your iPhone is plenty good enough, especially with the Portrait Mode where you can blur out the background. Take or convert the photo to old-school B&W: it will stand out more. And actually be hipper than color.

So it can be done. I 'm a couple of years ahead of you (ND'84). Put all the dates on my resume and got plenty of action. Different field, Aerospace and Program Management. I set a high bar and turned down some lower paying jobs. Took a year and wound up at a startup. Fairly big, aging organization to a 20 person start-up. I went from a 15 minute drive to a 65 minute drive. Zero regrets. I'm happy with the change and would do it again in a second.

Some thoughts/lessons learned

1) LinkedIn - use it. That's how they found me. Also a colleague our age. Also my 25 year old daughter. All in the last 12 months. Get your profile up to date with a photo, etc.
2) I was at one company straight outta ND. I filled 2 pages.
3) At the bottom of my resume, I put a miscellaneous section that said married, 3 kits, excellent health, avid snow skier and open water swimmer. The current HR/COO/a little of everything at the startup teases me a little about it now. "Never seen that on a gazillion resumes I looked at" but she loved it. She said she was out with an HR Director at local division of massive defense contractor and they shared notes. He was complaining about bringing in a "corpse" so she countered with my story. Now I work out every day and keep myself in very good shape. So I could back it up. Actually I limped into the second interview after tearing a calf muscle skiing. It's a source of amusement now. Think about that. It clicked with at lest one person.
4) I tried to display energy and enthusiasm in my interviews. Like I was ready to jump out of chair and go. I may have overdone it looking back. But I tried to fight the ageism that way.
5) I had one guy look at me sideways and said "why don't you just ride it out for a few more years?". I have at least 10 more years, I'm don't want that. It ain't over. I'm looking for a long term solution.
6) My son's a junior at UofR. Maybe we'll have a beer sometime when visiting and compare notes if you are still in Rochester.
7) Good luck. Don't get discouraged. Just keep pushing through. There are jobs out there. Feel free to drop me a line if you need a pep talk.

I hired a professional resume writer you can locate a certified writer at the link. While it is tempting to use a local person it is not necessary. I had several people compliment my resume, it is very different from any resume I every had previously. The process they put you through really makes you think about your career. Interview the resume writer some are companies that just grind out resumes, the person who did mine was a stay at home mom and she was great. She also updated my linked in page. It was worth the investment.

Update your LinkedIn page, be sure to turn on the option that allows recruiters to view your page. Be sure you have a current picture if you can have the picture taken professionally do it. Do not use a casual picture. I was going to have mine taken but I found a job quickly.

The challenge is the key words recruiters and HR use when searching resumes, they receive hundreds of resumes and they use software to search key words on your resume and LinkedIn.

Networking is very important, while I had several interviews the best ones came through networking, I had a job in 3 months, it was through networking.

I am happy to share my resume and the person who wrote it as well. My email is attached.

• Click here for link at https://parw.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi

preferential treatment over us contractors.

Guided by a professional placement service. Email me.

Remember George O'Leary, and I'm dead serious.

Nobody sloughs off background checks these days like they used to. Even on the resume, yes, people will check and if you don't have the dates on it it's a reason to put your resume in the virtual circular file. You don't want to give people a reason to reject you out of hand just because of your resume.

And hell yeah, include your veteran status.

I've always included every job I've had on my resume, but for the ones past about 15 years, I've just put in something like "accounting supervisor" with no further description. You never know, the hiring manager might be as old as you and have a connection with wherever you worked. You'd be surprised how often that happens, in some professions (like mine, ERP consulting) it happens all the time. But like I say, no further description required.

All dates on your education.

I am a little younger than tf86, but I was a good 15-20 years older than most of my classmates when I was interviewing for post-MBA jobs. I actually wound up taking a position where my years of experience were a benefit, but along the way I got a lot more interviews, and subsequently a handful more offers, when I left as much potential fuel for age discrimination as possible off my resume. Graduation dates were unnecessary, and no work before 10 years ago was listed.

The tricky part was the fact that the management positions I held 15-20 years ago were often more directly relevant than the position I held 2 years ago.

Once I realized that nobody gives a shit beyond a superficial scan, things got a lot easier for me. Looking like a 27 year old on paper and then having to outperform younger peers in an interview was a lot better for me than looking like a 42 year old on paper and not getting an interview in the first place.

People will figure out your age practically from the beginning.

It also depends on the profession. In a few, like mine (fortunately), age is actually an advantage. People will pay for experience in those.

I agree 100% with Barney68 below - your resume should be an outline that you customize base on the position that you are applying for. This can't be said enough.

I have applied for a number of jobs in the past 2 weeks, every online application I filled out asks about veteran status, so your potential employer will have that info. But, I still think that you could have a line item, "Active Enlistment US Navy 1986-1990" for example. Even if you don't list your employment history back that far.

there's specific documentation you need to produce. I am also not positive any military service counts; I believe that at least for the federal government you need to have deployed.

Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal. At least in New York, that is sufficient. I was actually able to get a partial scholarship (not much, but every bit helps) because of it.

for the purpose of getting whatever preference it accords. As to whether it makes your resume stand out, that's a different question -- I think it certainly can't hurt.

Do not think of a single resume but, rather, a baseline version that you customize, emphasis "customize", for each opportunity. One size fits all really fits none.

1. You have 30 years experience so you also have 20 years experience ... and 10 years. Truncate things as needed to get your resume to the "let's talk to this fellow" stack. It's the truth, just not "the whole truth."
2. You have degrees from a few years ago. Do both of them apply to THIS OPPORTUNITY? You are not required to reveal the law degree unless it helps as there is no crime in understating your qualifications. Ditto the dates. Do they help in the particular case at hand?
3. Veteran status: does it help? Many employers, Northrup comes to mind, might see it as a major plus. Others as a "so what?" Some might see it as a negative (no, I can't think of an example).
4. "Unexplained" is the key word. It's long ago, 1998 to be precise, but I quit a job without a go-forward plan and found myself with lots of time on my hands. "What I did on my summer vacation" makes a better story than saying I was employed for those months.

You didn't ask, but:

5. Network, network, network. The jobs that are advertised are not the ones you are looking for and getting to the hiring manager by going through the HR department is doing it the hard way.
6. Find ways to spend your free time productively.
6.1 Consulting is a great way to combine keeping busy with networking with getting some money coming in. I've been doing it since '98.
6.2 Volunteer work always gets mentioned but is rarely defined. What do you enjoy? There are always charities in need of help, politicians who feel as you do on the issues, etc.
6.3 What is your passion? Perhaps you should write that book ...
7. Plan. Implement the plan. Update the plan. Implement the update. There are a lot of issues that you may want to consider including finances, location, personal marketing (network ...), and the like.
8. Keep your spirits up. That means doing things that are meaningful to you. Maybe this is the year to take a month and hike part of the Camino.

Good luck!

I'm in my mid-50s too and recently changed jobs. I had to update my resume for the first time in a long time.

I decided to leave the dates of my undergraduate and law degrees off the resume. I also left off the timelines of the various law firms at which I worked over the years. I did put the date of my, at that time, current employment to "the present" so that they would know how long I had been in my existing position. Although I went back more than 15 years, I did not have too many stops after law school so the list was not too lengthy.

Another thing to consider is the length of your resume. When I am hiring somebody, I usually like to see everything synopsized on one page. At this stage of your career, this doesn't apply to you. When you get to a certain age, you have a decent number of accomplishments, relevant awards and other things worth mentioning so my resume ran two full pages. In addition, when I changed gigs about 15 years ago, I had put together different versions of my resume that highlighted the relevant experience for the particular job for which I was applying.

You definitely should mention your time in the Navy. That's always a plus factor when I'm hiring and I know a lot of employers look favorably upon that. I agree that the dates are not important. It doesn't hurt to mention your rank at retirement (assuming you got past midshipmen).

Good luck.

I didn't retire from the Navy. I served four years after ND, then resigned.

I would include veteran status.
I include all employment post law school to today
I do think gaps have to be explained

I think the most important thing is to tailor your resume to the position you are seeking. Also, I found that in higher/legal ed., at least, the application process involves completing a lengthy online form that requires a candidate to enter virtually all the info on a resume in the app. Including all dates, degrees, employment history, veteran status, even disability status. Very time consuming. So one way or the other, you will be providing the information.