Is it time to "Dumb Down" your resume?

From Joe's Story

  Securing work in a tight economy means more job seekers might find
themselves applying for positions below their qualifications. Many
unemployed professionals are willing to take paycuts for the promise of
a paycheck. But to get a foot in the door, candidates are gearing down
their résumés by hiding advanced degrees, changing too-lofty titles,
shortening work experience descriptions, and removing awards and
accolades.

In the past eight months, Jamaica Eilbes, an information-technology recruiter for Milwaukee employment
agency Manpower, has had to weed out more overqualified résumés than
usual from the stacks that cross her desk each day. "I'd never feel
comfortable putting a really high-level candidate into a lower level
position," says Ms. Eilbes, who recruits for Manpower and other
clients. "We don't want to take you on if we think you are going to
jump ship."

But in recent months, Ms. Eilbes has seen more master's and doctoral degrees at the bottom of résumés instead of at the top. She's also seen candidates omitting or trimming job descriptions that showed they had substantial years of work experience. Résumés on which job descriptions
taper off as they progress down the page raise Ms. Eilbes's suspicions.
"How do I know I can trust them later down the road if there's
something on their résumé they decided to take off so they could have a
better chance at getting that job?" she says.

Still,
for some professionals who find themselves constantly rejected despite
decades of experience, scaling back the truth -- or at the least, some
of their experiences -- can feel like the only chance at an interview.

Jane
Doe, 52, has 32 years of marketing experience but doesn't want her
résumé to show it. When she lost her job as vice president of marketing
at a small LA marketing firm
in January, Ms. Doe searched for work with little success. At an
interview for a fast food marketing-director position in February, she
was told that the hiring budget had only enough for a junior-level employee and that her résumé showed she was overqualified.

Many
of the jobs she comes across ask for far fewer years of experience than
she has. "There is nothing to apply for" at my level, Ms. Doe says. She
quickly realized her job experience was pricing her out of too many
positions. Her solution: To try not to look as senior level as she
really was. So she eliminated certain jobs and removed details about
speaking engagements and board positions.

Career
counselors advise against making too many drastic changes. But they
also say the demand for this kind of restructuring is on the rise. In
the past three months, Tammy Kabell, a Kansas City, Mo., job-search
coach, says more clients are requesting her help to "dumb down" their
résumés, whether by changing job titles, playing down experience, or
altogether omitting some impressive achievements. One recent client, a
61-year-old former chief learning officer at a tech company, insisted
on omitting her C-level job title from her résumé. She was fearful her
application would be weeded out by the Web search-optimization tools
companies use to manage résumés.

Some résumé writers advise
reworking a résumé into a functional one stressing transferable skills
instead of past job titles and accomplishments. "Instead of focusing on
the big achievements that might scare an employer away, you can spell
out what you can bring to an employer in the next position," Ms. Kabell
says.

Joe Work, 55, has 30 years of experience in IT education
and training management, an advanced degree, and has run a $200 million
global business. After four months of sending resumes into what must be
a black hole, he dumb down his resume to reflect 20+ years of
experience running large training business in the US. He received three
inquiry's after taking this action.

"You have to make those
creative edits when it comes to short-term work, but in terms of
long-term work, you have to stay true to your experience," says Joe.