It’s a key marketing tool—your opportunity to present yourself in the best light before an in-person interview. But the older you are, the tougher it can be to create a résumé that details years of experience without bogging down in details.

For boomer job seekers, the key is to keep it simple, relevant and timely.“Your résumé is not going to get you the job,” said Kerry Hannon, a Washington-based career expert and author of “Great Jobs for Everyone 50+.” “It’s the interview that gets you the job. Use [the résumé] as your calling card.”

Here are seven résumé tips for mature workers:

1. Keep it timely

Stick to the most recent 10 to 15 years of experience, says Amanda Augustine, a job-search expert with career website TheLadders.com.

If you’ve got relevant experience from 20 or 30 years ago, consider adding a note to that effect at the end of your résumé’s “experience” section, Augustine said.

She offered an example: “Career Note: Additional experience includes roles in brand management with Coca-Cola Company and Nestlé SA. Details available upon request.”

For your recent jobs, you’ll need to provide dates, said Andrea Kay, career consultant and author of a forthcoming book, “This Is How to Get Your Next Job: An Inside Look at What Employers Really Want.”

But for decades-old experience, leave off the dates—and only include those old jobs if they’re relevant to the work you’re currently seeking.

“Sometimes I will crunch together a lot of experience that may be old but is still relevant, and use a subhead like ‘Other Experience Includes’ or ‘Experience Also Includes,’” Kay said.

“I don’t put dates with that, but it shows you have that experience,” she said. “You put it on there because it’s relevant to what you’re trying to achieve now.”

It’s OK to leave off college-graduation dates, Kay said.

2. Keep it focused

Often, mature workers want to include everything they’ve ever done. Don’t. Your résumé is not a life history.

Focus on the position you’re seeking, advises Martin Yate, author of a number of career-management books and the site KnockEmDead.com, which offers professional résumé services for a fee.

Yate advocates a technique he calls “target job deconstruction.” Gather six or so job postings and find one job requirement that’s common to all of them, then look for a skill required for at least five of them, then four, etc.

Then, make sure the experience and skills you cite in your résumé match those skills employers say they’re seeking, Yate said.

Also, limit your résumé to two pages, Augustine said. “A recruiter is spending an average of six seconds reviewing a résumé—anything longer than three pages will not get read. Professional résumé writers rarely create a résumé that’s more than two pages.”

3. Tell a story

Your résumé should tell employers a narrative about how you’ve been successful in previous jobs. That means being specific, such as how you increased revenues or stayed under budget by a certain percentage.

“You want to say you grew sales by 30% or you brought a job in three months ahead of time,” Hannon said. “The problem you solved is what people want to see, because they want you to solve their problem.”

 Please continue reading full story By Andrea Coombes on MarketWatch.