The AARP has announced that there has been quite an increasein the amount of employers seeking workers over the age of 50. According to theagency, they have added three federal agencies and six private companies, all seekingsenior employees. This is part of an effort of AARP’s new National EmployerTeam. So far, the IRS, the Peace Corps and the Small Business Association havejoined to provide jobs for older employees.

AARP has set up a spot on their website where applicants canseek jobs from these and 35 other agencies and companies. The service is free,even to those who do not belong to AARP. According to Deborah Russell, who isin charge of the agency’s work force related issues, more companies arerecognizing the value of hiring seniors. She stated, "They recognize thefact that mature workers bring good experience and skills to the workplace.Many see lower turnover rates (among) mature workers. More importantly, somerecognize this is a labor pool they will have to pull from because they don'thave the ability to attract younger workers to these kinds of jobs."

This new service from AARP will come in handy as morebaby boomers plan to work past the regular retirement age. According to recentsurveys, as many as 69% of people in this age group plan to work past the usualretirement age of 65. This is due to high health care costs and insufficientretirement income. Thousands of jobs are currently being offered through thisnew program. 

Like most rules, the one about to be presented does have its exceptions. Some employers want to see a laundry list of everything you’ve ever done. They want to know every detail of every project you’ve ever worked on and for whom, and hopefully you know enough to know who these employers are and provide them what they want. But for the rest of the employers out there in the world today, quite often a short, one page resume is going to be the one that gets the most attention.

There are several reasons for the growing popularity of the one page resume. In today’s job market no one is going to hire you based on the merits of a resume alone. The resume is just an employer’s first tool in deciding if you are qualified enough to move on to the interview stage. So keep in mind that you are using the resume just to open doors, not win battles. Employers look at so many resumes that they have no desire to spend hours wading through three page resumes.

A one page resume gives an air of confidence to a job application. It says that you have done more work than could fit on there, but rather than boring an employer with that long list, you are confident enough that what you have listed will get you in that front door. When people feel the need to list every single change in position they have ever had since high school, it tends to give off hints of panic or insecurity. Also when people list reams of special skills or qualifications, it seems like they haven’t done their homework. It doesn’t seem relevant that you have tile laying experience if you’re applying for an IT position. Including this sort of thing in a job application makes it seem like you didn’t care about getting the job enough to really research the position and decide what was relevant about yourself in qualifying for it.

And there is the key. Relevance. Employers would like you to decide what is relevant in your life to the position they have available. If you have a good enough answer to that question in the form of your resume, you will probably get that interview. Be confident in your resume, and in yourself. Just keep it simple and let it do the work for you.

*NOTE: Our free resume builder has some great features that allow you to easily format your resume down to one page.

After nearly three months in development, we're proud to announce the release of version 2.0 of our online resume builder!  By taking all of your comments and suggestions, we've created a one-of-a-kind tool that we feel no other resume builder even comes close to.  So what's so great about version 2?

1) Phrase Builders - One of the biggest problems people seem to have in writing a resume is articulating the experience that they've gained over the years.  A lot of people have a hard time describing their accomplishments with the proper amount of fanfare.  When writing a resume, you need to be sure that your description pays proper tribute to your past experience.  You may have spent the last 15 years doing exactly what's needed to prepare you for that dream job, but if you can't properly articulate that experience on your resume, you may never even get your foot in the door.

2) Templates, Templates, Templates - Writing a resume the old fashioned way is hard - formatting a resume the old fashioned way is excruciating.  With version 2.0 we've reduced the act of formatting your resume down to a single mouse click.  No need to play around with tables and borders in Word only to find out that you can't export to some other format that's required for the next job you want to apply for.  Simply click on the template you think works best for you and it's ready to download in multiple formats.

3) Context Sensitive Tips - One common request we received was more help with what types of information to enter into specific fields.  Now on each page, and in some cases each field of the resume builder, you'll get handy tips on how to fill in the blanks. 

We've worked hard to build a tool that makes writing a great resume as effortless as possible.  So if you haven't checked it out yet, I highly recommend you give it a go.  If you have questions or suggestions, you can always click on the Contact Us link at the top of the page and send us a quick note.  It's your feedback that drove this latest release and it's your feedback that will continue to make it better.