Resumes Are Not Meant to be a Career Novel

Who remembers Lotus 1-2-3? 🙋 Yep, I’m dating myself here…

But let’s be honest, your first thought was probably, “Who cares? That’s irrelevant and obsolete.”

And that is precisely how a hiring manager can feel when reading a resume packed with outdated or irrelevant content.

The Temptation to Lay It All Out There is Real...

You’ve spent years, even decades, building your expertise; you naturally want to showcase the scope of your experience. You’ve led teams, launched projects, and built things from the ground up. And truthfully? I’m a big fan of that. Those stories matter.

However, your resume isn’t the place for the entire story. A resume should be your strategic highlight reel, not a full documentary. Too much outdated detail can make even the most impressive career look cluttered, unfocused, or worse, irrelevant.

👉 Why Irrelevance Hurts Your Resume:
Hiring managers and recruiters are reading dozens (sometimes hundreds) of resumes. Their brains are wired to scan for:

• Right experience for this role.
• Demonstrated impact.
• Transferable value.

When they encounter a wall of outdated technology, job duties from 20 years ago, or details that don’t align with the target role, they disconnect, just like Lotus 1-2-3. Their job is to spot the right candidate, not decode your resume and play detective 🕵️

👉 Save It for the Interview
Think of your resume as your professional billboard, not your entire autobiography. That deep, ground-up knowledge you’ve built? The stories that show resilience, resourcefulness, and growth? Those are perfect for the interview, where you can connect them to the company's challenges in a meaningful way.

👉 Quick Gut-Check: What to Cut
🛑 Old tech skills no one uses anymore (goodbye, Lotus).
🛑 Job duties from the early years that don’t connect to today’s target role.
🛑 Responsibilities without results. If you list it, show the impact.
🛑 Dense blocks of text that are hard to scan.
🛑 Excessive backstory instead of forward value.

👉 Instead, Do This:
✅ Lead with recent, relevant wins.
✅ Highlight measurable impact (growth, savings, engagement, efficiency).
✅ Show strategic leadership and adaptability that never goes obsolete.
✅ Keep it tight, targeted, and forward-looking.

Resumes are marketing documents, not memoirs. Give hiring managers exactly what they need to say: “This is the person we should interview.”
The rest? That’s your conversation starter once you land the seat at the table.