Stop apologizing for your experience. Start framing it as the competitive advantage it is!

You removed 10 years of experience from your resume. You got the interview. The Zoom camera turned on, and you watched their face change in real-time—whether it was the gray hair, the lines around your eyes, or just the realization that you weren't 28.

You didn't get the job.

If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. And you're definitely not crazy.

Let's Call It What It Is: A Dumpster Fire

The job market right now is brutal. Mass layoffs (again and again). Fake job postings. Return-to-office mandates pushing women out of the workforce in droves. The math between commute + childcare + post-COVID reality? It's not mathing for a lot of us. We've gotten a taste of systems that actually work for our lives—and we're not going back.

If you're a woman over 35, you're hearing a greatest hits album of polite rejection:

"You're overqualified." "We move really fast here." "Not quite the right cultural fit." Or my personal favorite: complete radio silence.

You're applying for jobs you could do in your sleep—not because you lack ambition, but because bills are real and you'd gladly bring your A-game to a role that doesn't require all your letters of recommendation and a blood oath.

Meanwhile, your experience is incredible. So what's actually happening here?

Let's Talk About What "Resilient" Actually Means

Here's what they're missing when they write you off as "too expensive" or "set in your ways":

You didn't just adapt to change. You've been the architect of it.

Think about what your generation has navigated:

Yellow Pages and rolodexes → Leading global teams from your iPhone

Plug-in dial-up internet (remember that screech?) → Integrating AI into workflows

Pre-9/11 workplace norms → Post-pandemic hybrid chaos

Fax machines → Real-time collaboration across 6 time zones before your first coffee

You've rebuilt your entire professional toolkit at least three times.

How exactly can we be "set in our ways" when the ways of the world have shifted faster than any generation before us?

A Brief Intermission for the Truth

We're the generation that learned DOS, then Windows, then Mac, then mobile, then cloud, then AI—often with zero training and while also doing our actual jobs.

We've adapted to more technological and cultural shifts in 20 years than any generation before us.

We've led teams through recessions, terror attacks, market crashes, a global pandemic, and mass layoffs—and we're still here.

And yet somehow we're the ones who "might not adapt well to a fast-paced environment"?

That's not a skills gap. That's bias dressed up as a business decision.

Your Experience isn’t expensive. It’s an investment!

Let's flip the script on the most common objections.

1. "Experience is expensive."

Translation: We're worried you'll expect to be paid what you're worth.

Reality: Experience means execution. You don't need 6 months of hand-holding, three failed pivots, and a consultant to tell you what you already know. You've seen this movie. You know how it ends. You'll save them time, money, and chaos.

The real cost: Hiring three junior people to do what you could do alone—and spending a year getting them up to speed—is way more expensive than paying you what you're worth.

2. "You might be set in your ways."

Translation: We want someone who won't question our (possibly broken) systems.

Reality: You've rebuilt your toolkit multiple times across multiple business models. You've pivoted through recessions, technological revolutions, and a global pandemic. Being "set in your ways" would require having ways that actually stayed still. Yours haven't.

The real cost: Hiring someone who won't question broken processes means you'll keep bleeding time, budget, and talent until someone finally speaks up. You already know how to fix it.

3. "We're not sure you'll fit our culture."

Translation: We're intimidated, or we have unconscious bias we haven't examined.

Reality: You've built cultures. You've led teams across continents, through crises, and across generations. You didn't just "fit in"—you created the table others are now sitting at.

The real cost: Hiring for "culture fit" instead of culture add means you'll keep recycling the same ideas and missing the perspective that could actually move the business forward.

4. "We move fast here."

Translation: We're chaotic and mistake urgency for strategy.

Reality: You've moved fast while also moving smart. Speed without strategy is just expensive flailing. They're about to learn that the hard way.

The real cost: Moving fast without someone who can spot the landmines means you'll burn budget, miss deadlines, and pivot three times before you land where experience would've taken you in one.

5. "We're looking for someone who can grow with the company."

Translation: We want someone younger who'll stick around for 10 years.

Reality: You've grown through more disruption in 5 years than most companies will face in their entire lifecycle. "Growth" isn't about tenure—it's about evolution. And you've been evolving since before they had a business plan.

The real cost: Betting on "potential" over proven performance means you'll spend years developing someone who may or may not deliver—while passing on someone who could transform your business starting tomorrow.

How to Actually Talk About This (The Corporate Translation)

Okay, strategy time. Here's how to translate your resilience into language that makes hiring managers pay attention:

Instead of: "I have 20 years of experience in marketing."
Try: "I've scaled marketing strategies across four distinct business models—from traditional to digital-first to AI-integrated. I've seen what works, what fails fast, and how to pivot without burning budget."

Instead of: "I'm a hard worker who's been through a lot."
Try: "I've led teams through three economic downturns and a global pandemic. I know how to make decisions under pressure, reallocate resources on the fly, and keep teams focused when everything's on fire."

Instead of: Avoiding your experience entirely
Try: "I bring pattern recognition that only comes from solving the same problem across different contexts. I've made the expensive mistakes so you don't have to."

When they say: "You seem overqualified."
Respond with: "I'm not looking for a title—I'm looking for impact. I've learned that the best work often happens when you're solving real problems, not managing politics. I'm here because this problem interests me and I know I can move the needle."

Translate resilience into results.

And Here's Why This Actually Matters

This isn't just about us getting jobs (though let's be clear—we need those too).

This is about refusing to let broken systems define our worth. About proving that experience isn't a liability—it's leverage. About making sure the people coming after us don't have to fight the same battles we did. For some of us, that means our kids—our Gen Alphas. We're raising these incredible humans, and we want different for them.

For others, it's about the younger colleagues we mentor, the teams we lead, or simply refusing to be erased from a workforce we helped build. Either way, we're dismantling systems that were never designed for us in the first place.

Imagine systems where:

There's no parent penalty (or caregiver penalty—because eldercare is real too)
No gender pay gap
No unconscious bias that picks the younger candidate just because we have gray hair
No 9-to-5 that's actually "always on" without the flexibility to support a whole life
No more pretending we're just our titles or the companies we work for

We've been navigating systems built for a different era—systems that use military ranks (C-suite, anyone?) and expect us to show up like we don't have lives, bodies, or responsibilities outside work.

And we've kept showing up anyway. So when we fight for ourselves right now—when we push back on "overqualified" and "not the right fit"—we're also building the world we want them to inherit.

The Bottom Line

Your resilience isn't a soft skill. It's not something to apologize for or downplay. It's a competitive advantage they're too short-sighted to see. You've navigated more change, absorbed more disruption, and rebuilt more systems than most of these hiring managers have even witnessed. You're not "expensive"—you're an investment. You're not "set in your ways"—you're battle-tested and still evolving.

So let's make them see it. Reframe that experience. Walk into that Zoom room knowing that gray hair isn't a liability—it's proof you've been in the arena. And if they can't see the value? That's their loss, not yours.

You've got this. We've got this. And we're building something better for the ones coming after us.

Know someone over 40+who's been job searching and hitting walls? Forward this to them. We all need the reminder that our experience isn't a liability—it's leverage.

Want more personal stories? You can find my Love letters to Parents series on my Substack, It’s my take on the messy, beautiful truth about navigating work and life through all stages. You can find that here

Resilience Is a Superpower: How to Frame Your Experience on a Resume