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You remove things from your resume. Any job more than 10 years ago? Delete.
My work advertised for 6+ years, then hired someone with 20 YoE. It depends on the place whether they are actually looking for a junior person they can pay less, or are posting it as MINIMUM YoE and will gladly take more. Hard to tell from the job posting.
Really depends on the hiring manager. Either they’ll see you as likely eager for quick promos that they don’t have budget for and therefore a flight risk. Or they’ll appreciate your experience and see the potential for you to offer a big lift.
Regardless, it’s largely out of your control. Trying to manipulate resume isn’t going to help; rather I really only see introducing the downside of coming off as disingenuous when your duration of experience comes out during interviews.
During the interviews, you will also have to fight the stigma associated with downleveling yourself.
I agree with this. I had a company rescind an offer and it was most likely because they thought I was going to be a flight risk even though I was willing to hang out for a while and I believe they found someone cheaper.
Is there a reason you’re willing to take such a junior role and not apply based on your experience? I’d think you have about as good of a chance (perhaps better) applying at or at least near your level as you would applying well below it. I’m assuming you’re applying within the area of your expertise or at least very closely related and you’re not trying to completely switch industries.
But I would say more experienced and niche areas are harder to find and therefore more likely to stick out in a pile of resumes. Interviews aren’t coming easily to anyone. Most postings receive hundreds of resumes within hours of being posted. Recruiters may or may not see it if they’re using ATS/AI. So getting to a human is increasingly more difficult. If you have a ton of experience I’d look for roles that specifically ask for your experience.
There aren't a lot of in-house roles for my particular speciality (Trademark law). I tried to address "I'm not looking to use this as a stepping stone" issue in my cover letter, but to no avail.
I applied to roles that wanted 3/4 yoe when I had 10 +. It never hurts to try, but they really were “junior” roles in title and pay. It would not have worked. My job wanted 7-8 and each time they took someone with 10+. So my advice to you is to focus on those roles. This is an extremely hard market, but anything you match with at least 50% or is local, I would try for. Interviewing truly is a skill so if you don’t “have” it, you can work on it.