I am in my 50's and looking to change my career path.

6 Comments

1. SPQNovember 10,2025 at 9:28PM UTC

   Use a functional resume, listing skills and administrative roles, industries worked in, and admin accomplishments and metrics at the top without dates. At the end of your resume you can list your career history with dates, but you don't need to write bullet points here (like how you would for education, associations, or volunteer work).

   Use a headline under your name:
   Experienced administrative professional, specializing in (industry or skill).

   - Experienced administrative professional, specializing in logistics and supply chain
   - Administrative specialist experienced in project and event management

   Body of your functional resume could be like:

   (Title), (Industry, Sector, Department, or Project/Program/Portfolio)

   Administrative Assistant, Communications and Marketing.
   - bullet point accomplishments or achievements that made you stand out or significantly helped your company, project, team or department

   Administrative Coordinator, Recruitment Strategies (Project: Academic Outreach)
   - paragraph or bullet points about the role you played in the project and what successes you helped achieve

   Administrator, Client Enablement (Program: Loan Intake and Processing)

   If you are applying for a job with 'Admin' in the role---if your title didn't start with 'Admin' I would recommend you add it or tweak your title in this section. Then you can give your formal title at the end of your resume with the dates.
   If you are applying for other job titles, this may not be as necessary.
   - Customer Service Representative becomes 'Administrative Specialist, Customer Relations'.

   Since the beginning of your resume is now the "Experience" section (you can re-title this area 'Select Roles' or 'Professional Summary'), the end of your resume is now just a list (you can title this area 'Experience and Education/Certifications' or 'Experience and Community Involvement' or just 'Experience'). In this area, you can choose to list your company first, or your title first, just be consistent.

   The Grove, Sous Chef. 2025-2020

   Deb's Place, Line Cook. 2020-2017

   National Car Rental, Customer Service Representative. 2017-2016

   Encore Event Management, Receptionist. 2015-2013

   If you're worried about Ageism, you may not want to list the dates, but since the majority of your last 10 years have been in a different field, you may still want to list the places you've worked and titles you've held. You can fill in the space by talking about the company or industry, and the type of clientele, services, goods, or projects provided.

   Receptionist, Mercury Holdings.
   Primary point of contact for the scheduling, travel accommodations, and account coordination at a boutique interior design company specializing in high end office spaces.

   As always, consult or tweak with AI.

2. Alexis GladstoneNovember 11,2025 at 1:25PM UTC

   Shelley has a great idea. Another a variation of this is to highlight your skills/accomplishments as they relate to the majority of AA job descriptions. It may be a bit harder based on your most recent roles, but it's doable. So it would be something like:

   Problem-Solving – Used intimate knowledge of XYZ system to troubleshoot issues, identifying issues that may impact employees using the system.

   Organization Skills – Managed meeting calendars of seven team members. Organized meetings, took and distributed notes, and coordinated all aspects of the agenda.

   Initiative – Proactively maintained office workspace,s conference rooms, front reception desk and break areas to ensure safe and clean environments for all company employees.

   Happy to connect and walk you through this further.

3. MarilynNovember 11,2025 at 5:11PM UTC

   It would great to connect, I could use some help with putting all this together.

   I do want to return to school to update my skills and learn some of the new programs.

   Where are you located?

4. Alexis GladstoneNovember 12,2025 at 1:35PM UTC

   Mardi, I'm in Chicago. We can schedule a virtual call so I can share more about how to go about creating a resume like this. Why don't you connect with me on LinkedIn and we can coordinate. It's easy to find me as the other Alexis Gladstone is a doctor!

5. MarilynNovember 12,2025 at 7:39PM UTC

   I'm in Ontario. I'll have a look. Thanks.

6. MarilynNovember 11,2025 at 5:08PM UTC

   Thank you for tips and suggestions, this is great. I'm glad I only sent out one resume. I was always pretty good at landing interviews when I sent out resumes but lately its hasn't been the same like it was 7 years ago.