Early-career advice often tells candidates to “show potential.” Mid-career documents need a different centre of gravity: evidence that you have made decisions under constraints and can do so again.
Chronology still rules
German recruiters typically scan dates and employers before reading bullet points. Unexplained gaps, overlapping roles without context, or a sudden drop in title draw more attention than a missing hobby section. If a gap exists, a single plain line beats silence.
Titles need translation, not inflation
Internal titles from long tenures can be opaque outside the firm. A short clarifying phrase in parentheses helps; inventing a grander title does not. Hiring managers who later discover inflation treat it as a character issue.
Fewer bullets, more judgment
A paragraph that names a problem, the choice you made, and the result outperforms a list of every tool you touched. For candidates over fifty, this is also where age stereotypes are quietly countered: the document shows recent, concrete contribution rather than distant peak years alone.
A structured Lebenslauf & Application Review walks through these choices on your actual draft rather than a generic template.