How to write a CV when you are over forty
More experience than the young ones, and applications go unanswered. The problem is usually not the experience but that the CV has turned into a biography. Below: what gets read first, how to compress twenty years into one page, and what to write about a gap.
More experience than the young ones, and applications go unanswered. The problem is usually not the experience but that the CV has turned into a biography. Below: what gets read first, how to compress twenty years into one page, and what to write about a gap.
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If there is no time to read: five steps
1. One page. Two and almost nobody opens it.
2. The last 10–15 years in detail, everything earlier in one line.
3. Replace duties with results. Not "handled purchasing" but "cut the purchase price by 12%".
4. Explain a gap in one sentence and do not apologise.
5. A separate headline for every vacancy. Not "specialist" but the job title from the advertisement.
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What a CV after forty looks like
Somebody has worked for thirty years, fifteen of them in one place. Knows the work from the inside, can do things nobody teaches. Ends up on the market — through redundancy, a closure, or simply a decision to change.
They write a CV. They honestly list everything: eight jobs since 1998, a list of duties for each, education, courses. That comes to three pages of dense text — a life set out conscientiously.
They send forty applications. Two reply.
The first conclusion people draw is that it is their age. Sometimes it is, but far more often it is something else — and that something else is fixable in an evening.
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Who I am and why I am writing about CVs after forty
I have been working with AI for five years, since 2019, but this article is not about that.
I have a design agency with a thirty-year history and a staff of more than twenty. I have been reading CVs from the other side of the desk for about as long as the agency has existed. And this article is written from that side: not "how to compose one properly" but what I see first and what makes me close the file.
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How a CV is actually read
The first thing to understand: a CV is not read. It is skimmed.
Eight to ten seconds on the first pass. In that time the person on the other side decides one thing: look further or close it.
What they manage to see in that time. The headline — what you call yourself. The last place of work and the job title. The overall volume of text. That is all.
Neither the lists of duties nor the courses from 2007 nor the "about me" section make it into that pass. They get read later — and only if the first pass succeeded.
Hence the main mistake of a long CV. It is written as though it will be read in full and in order. And it is skimmed diagonally from the top, and everything important has to be in the first third.
Three things that get a CV closed immediately
It is unclear who you are. The headline says "specialist" or "manager" and one has to guess. Nobody will guess.
Solid text with no structure. Ten-line paragraphs, no lists, no figures. The reader sees a wall and sets it aside — and "set aside" means "did not come back".
Typing errors and inconsistent formatting. Not out of pedantry. A CV is the only document by which your carefulness is judged before anybody meets you.
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Why long experience gets in the way
It sounds unfair, but the mechanics are simple.
The CV turns into a biography. A chronological list of every job since 1998 reads as "here is my life", while what is wanted from a candidate is something else: "here is what I can do for you".
Early jobs pull attention away. Work from 1998 to 2003 takes up as much space as the most recent, though its value to an employer is close to nil.
Duties instead of results. Long experience is usually described by listing what you were occupied with: "maintaining documentation", "overseeing supplies", "working with contractors". That is a description of a post rather than of you — anybody in the same post would sign it.
What to do with all that.
The last 10–15 years in detail, with results. Everything earlier in one line: "1998–2008 — manufacturing, engineering and management positions". The experience has not vanished, it is folded up.
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Duties turn into results
The most useful substitution, and it takes half an hour.
The mechanics: to each line add what changed as a result of your doing it.
| How people usually write it | How it reads better |
|---|---|
| Handled purchasing | Cut the purchase price by 12% by changing two suppliers |
| Worked with staff | Built a shift of 14 people, turnover halved within a year |
| Quality control | Introduced incoming inspection, defects fell from 7% to 2% |
| Maintained reporting | Consolidated reporting from three sites into one form, month-end closing shortened by a week |
"I have no figures" is the most common objection, and it is almost always untrue.
Figures need not come from a report. How many people reported to you. How many sites you were responsible for. How many years the equipment you maintained ran. How many requests a day passed through you. All of those are figures, and they say more than any adjective.
And a technique that helps recall them. Describe one of your duties in two versions: how it was before you and how it became. The difference between them is the result.
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What to write about a gap
A gap in employment frightens people more than it should.
The rule: explain it in one line and do not apologise.
Caring for a relative, recovering from illness, parental leave, a move, looking for work after a closure — all of those are normal reasons that do not require a paragraph of explanation.
Bad: write nothing and leave a hole in the dates. The reader will invent a reason themselves, and usually a worse one.
Bad: write three paragraphs of apology. That draws attention to a gap that does not deserve it.
Good: "2021–2022 — a break for family reasons". One line, and on with the text.
If you did something during the gap — studied, did some work, ran something of your own — write it. Not as an excuse but because that is also experience.
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How to assemble this in an evening
Now an assistant comes in. And there are two levels here: the simple one and the one that gives a noticeably better result.
#### Level one: just ask
You open an ordinary chat and give it three things:
Your current CV text in full — even if it is three pages and you are embarrassed by it.
The job title from the vacancy you are applying for.
Five or six facts that are not in the CV: how many people reported to you, what you were responsible for, what changed under you.
What to ask for:
> "Cut this to one page. The last 12 years in detail, earlier in one line. Rewrite the duties as results, and where there are figures put them first. The headline to suit this vacancy."
And separately, as a second request: "What in this CV looks weak and what is missing from it." That gives you a list of corrections you would not see yourself — your eye is used to it.
It works. But there is a better way.
#### Level two: ask it to write the request for you
The problem with the first level is that you give the model a general task and it solves it on an average. The CV comes out neat and faceless.
That is solved by having a separate assistant write the request — Prompt Master.
You write it one line in ordinary language:
> "Write a prompt that will rework my CV for a vacancy: cut it to a page, turn duties into results and adjust the emphasis to the employer's requirements. I am over forty with more than twenty years of experience."
What it does. It analyses the task — who you are, who the reader is, what the goal is. It proposes several approaches: for instance, a CV for a specific vacancy, a CV for changing field, a CV after a break. Then it assembles a finished request to a strict structure: role, order of work, quality criteria and output format.
What will be in that request that you would not have written.
The role — not "help me with my CV" but something specific: a recruiter with experience of hiring in your industry.
An order of work in steps: first break the vacancy down into requirements, then match them against your experience, then rewrite, then check itself.
Criteria: one page, results instead of duties, figures at the start of lines, no general adjectives.
Output format: the finished text plus, as a separate block, what remains uncovered and what you will be asked at interview.
That last point is worth all the rest. A list of weak spots is something you can prepare for in advance.
Prompt Master is free and works with no limit on the number of requests.
#### What to do next with the finished request
You copy it and paste it into a chat along with your CV and the text of the vacancy.
And for every subsequent vacancy you use the same request — only the inputs change. The first time takes half an hour, after that ten minutes.
The covering letter
A separate task, and shorter than it seems.
Not a retelling of the CV. Three paragraphs: why this vacancy specifically, what you have of what is required, what you can do in the first months.
What to give the assistant: the text of the vacancy and your CV. Ask for: "a three-paragraph covering letter, no general phrases, tie my experience to their requirements".
A separate one for every vacancy. One letter for all of them shows immediately.
And the same technique works: ask Prompt Master to write a request for covering letters once — after that you insert the vacancy and get a letter in a minute.
Where to start today
One action, thirty minutes.
Take your CV and strike out everything from more than fifteen years ago, replacing it with one line.
Then go through the remaining jobs and against each duty write what changed as a result of your doing it. At least three of them.
Usually after those two actions three pages become one and a half, and the text starts reading as a description of a person rather than an extract from an employment record.
Did it work? Assemble a second version for another vacancy. The second time takes ten minutes, because the basis exists — only the headline and the emphasis change.
Who helps with the text. The assistant catalogue has two for this task, and they look from different sides:
Career editor — from the applicant's side: it assembles three texts at once — the CV, a short introduction for a letter and a description for a profile.
Recruiter — from the side of whoever will be reading it. It is useful to show it a finished CV and ask what they would note and what they would skip. The answer is often unexpected.
There are six more HR assistants there — they break down a vacancy, explain the requirements and help you understand what you will be asked at interview.
Registration is free and opens three days of full access.
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What to read next
[AI for HR](/en/blog/ai-for-hr) — what the structure of an interview looks like from the other side of the desk.
[How to write a greeting or a toast](/en/blog/write-a-toast) — the same "give it the inputs, get something other than a template" principle, on an everyday task.
[First for yourself, then for others](/en/blog/from-yourself-to-clients) — if besides employment you are considering working for yourself.
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