Being employed for an extended period of time is a good thing. However, you want to avoid appearing out-of-touch or old on your resume. Instead, learn how to phrase your experience as a huge benefit to the company you’re applying at now.
Don’t Stop Learning
A concern that employers have about employees who have worked at the same company for many years is that they don’t continue to learn. Avoid becoming stagnate at all costs. Hopefully, that’s been your goal. List a continued learning or continued education section on your resume. If you were able to go back to school or continue taking classes and earned another degree or certificate, highlight that. Take advantage of your employer’s offer of continuous learning. If that’s not provided, then go with the added expense and pay for added learning yourself.
Highlight Your Positions
Though you’ve been with the same company for some time, you probably haven’t been in the same position for the duration of your stay. Don’t make the mistake of squeezing all your positions into one on your resume. List promotions and extended responsibilities. Show how your company trusted you by promotion or added tasks. This can show how your company valued you, and also any ways you may have worked in a diversified manner.
List Your Accomplishments
Don’t just stop at describing what your positions were like. Did you help your company pull through a dry spell? Be able to describe that, preferably with solid numbers to back up your claim. If you received special recognition or a reward this would be a good place to mention that too. Don’t just say what you did at your job. Describe what you were able to achieve and how that was beneficial to your former employer.
Eliminate Irrelevant Information
Industries are constantly changing, which is good. That’s probably why you’re looking for a new job. Remember that the skills you started off with are probably different from what you have now. Don’t get stuck in the past with irrelevant skills. Instead, check out job postings and see what skills are listed there. If one of yours isn’t, then that ability is probably no longer needed. Draw attention to your other pertinent abilities instead.
Play to Your Strengths
You’ve been in the workforce for a long time at one specific job. That shows commitment and loyalty. Be willing to display that in your resume. Finding new employees, training them, and dealing with the constant flux that is employment these days is costly to a company. Show that you’re a long-haul employee who knows what it means to stick with it through both the lean and good years.
Don’t let your long job history be a drawback. When you update your resume, draw attention to all the benefits that you bring to a company. Experience is an advantage. Play to that as you submit your resume and attend interviews.