This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Amy Lovett, 54. After being laid off in July, Lovett began her job search with a résumé that included her photo and full work experience. Once she removed her photo, some dates, and shortened her work history, Lovett, who lives in the St. Louis area, said she started getting more attention from employers. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
At my last job as an account executive at a software company, we had downsized significantly. I was one of the last senior reps. From what I understand, it was a payroll decision. In July, I was laid off after 20 years.
At first, of course, you’re a little panicked, but I wouldn’t say I was too crazy. It was also a bit of relief, because there had been so much business change going on that everybody was kind of on edge.
I was in a position to take a step back and really figure out what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to take too much time off, but I was able to take enough to be like, “OK, what do I like about this? What don’t I?”
I took probably a couple of weeks. After that, it was full focus on my résumé and talking with former colleagues. September is when I really started hitting the job search hard.
With my résumé, I changed keywords as needed. You’ve got to make them more specific to the role these days. Otherwise you you won’t even get a call. You’ve definitely got to do more customization than you used to.
I got some responses, but I didn’t get any interviews. Originally, I had my photo on my résumé. That résumé also included a lot of dates. I would say I’m a younger-looking 50. I wouldn’t say I look like I’m 80 or anything.
I had a career advisor review my résumé. She said, “Try taking your photo off of there. Remove a lot of the dates.” So I took my past experience, except for the last 20 years, off. For older jobs, I would give a bullet, but it was mainly the last 20 years-plus of my experience.
It felt like night and day
Once I made those changes, that’s when I started getting pinged fairly often. It absolutely felt like night and day. I was having calls with companies two to three times a week.
I felt there was a bigger demand out there than I initially thought, which gave me more confidence — feeling like, “OK, these companies are pinging me and showing interest.”
I think ageism was a factor, especially with a lot of SaaS companies that have a lot of younger people right out of college.
During my search, I didn’t let up. I took it seriously. I was working on résumés and applications every weekday. It’s hard to stay positive for that long, doing that day after day. For some reason, I was energized to try something new.
I had a spreadsheet. I had to keep track of everything because there was a lot of information. I didn’t want to be out of work for long.
I leaned into AI
I would tweak my résumé. I would run it through AI. I don’t like the AI-generated résumés. You can tell they’re AI. The verbiage, a lot of times, doesn’t sound like a person. I would never write like that. You’ve got to think: Does it sound like how you would communicate?
I did lean into AI because it helped me speed up the process, because there’s so much involved, and I was really just trying to find something as quickly as possible.
I used AI when I would work on my cover letters. I would take my résumé and compare it to their job requirements, and then shorten it. I think those personalizations were super important.
Going forward, especially in the field that I’m in, you’ve got to embrace technology.
When I got the job offer, they called me. I missed the call because I wasn’t by my phone. I was supposed to have another interview in two days, so I was like, “This is either good or bad.”
I called back, and they said, “Oh, we don’t need you for that last interview. We’d like to offer you the job.”
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