What is the best way to highlight older experience or hidden relevant JD components hidden beneath roles?

What is the best way to highlight older experience or hidden relevant JD components hidden beneath roles? After losing my job, I've been considering my options and when I was most engaged with my career. That revolves around entertainment marketing.

I have prior work in the industry but while some of it is recognized on my resume, unfortunately it's older / on my second page and the more recent experience is in industries where you wouldn't traditionally consider creative fields.

In banking, I carved out a niche working on entertainment and sports sponsorships but my title doesn't relate and I'm worried that recruiters spending a short time reviewing applications will dismiss banking and education without taking a deeper dive in terms of what I accomplished in those positions.

I've worked with concerts, musicians, theater groups etc. that ties in to the roles I'm applying for but not hearing anything from the more creative industries. I've looked into nonprofit work trying to channel my experience with fundraising and but while I've done fundraising for entertainment, it's again not easily understood when parsing my resume as the corporate companies had charity divisions.

I'm spending hours customizing my resumes for each application and before starting again this week, I wanted to ask if there's anything else I can try? Should I avoid a linear resume and add a related work section to the top highlighting the roles that apply and take out anything that doesn't showcase that background from the other positions? Thank you!

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  1. Anonymous

    Inside of adding older jobs on your resume, create a new heading under skills and include your attributes from those older jobs.

  2. Anonymous

    Yes avoid the linear, make it a features resume where you highlight skills and experience and at the bottom list the companies where you did it and the dates.

  3. Anonymous

    I had a similar issue when looking for my last job.
    There are multiple manners in which to handle this dilemma - and you may want to use one or a combination of them:
    1) Start your resume with a summary section highlighting relevant experience. Also list the relevant skills from the job description that you possess.
    2) When listing accomplishments on your past employment (listed in reverse chronological order), list those that relate to what you are trying to emphasize.
    3) You could also list your employment in the usual reverse chronological order with a section for the "relevant" work experience and one for the "related" or "other work experience.

    If you would like to see examples, there are a number of resume writers who follow a similar approach. One that offers a lot of valuable free guidance is Andy LaCivita's website and YouTube channel.

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