I could see the candidate was struggling to present his extensive professional experience with brevity and clarity. Four pages (all in paragraph format!) and a work history going back to 1971 was too much. A window of 15-20 years is sufficient; I relegated older background info to a footnote, without dates. To indicate his advanced status, I highlighted his degrees, licenses, and training over the years. Another crucial highlight was adding quantifiable accomplishments to each position, a missing ingredient in the original.

In addition to the background footnote, other format changes helped bring out his strong points. Where the original was written entirely in paragraphs, the revision allows a potential employer to quickly scan the document before zeroing in for details. Adding a two-column table for discrete skill sets, headers with separating line borders, and bullet lists create landmarks so that a reader can quickly find the facts they want. Organizing information into a hierarchy (e.g., moving Education under Experience, establishing an overall title, adding a keyword section for skills) helps as well, as does sparing use of bold and italic type for emphasis. I also scrubbed out "I"s and "my"s: they are implied by context.