- Jobseeker included a selfie in car wearing her sunglasses.
- Jobseeker included a picture of himself, shirtless surrounded by Photoshopped images of snow bunnies and Jesus.
- Jobseeker faxed twenty copies in the company addressed to different people and companies with cover letters plastered with phrases such as: “Go get ’em, boys!” “Put me in, Coach!” and an array of other phrases.
You probably know not to do any of the above when crafting your own resume, but even as an intelligent, professional jobseeker, there are common mistakes that you may be making on your resume that will prevent hiring managers from considering you for a position. We created a list of the most common mistakes that we see jobseekers making with their resumes, and how to avoid them.
1. Unappealing (or unprofessional) format. While it goes without saying that selfies, snow bunnies, and religious figures should not appear on your resume, your resume should include some basic elements that make it easy on the eyes for your hiring managers so that they’re more apt to read it. You don’t need to be an artist to create an aesthetically pleasing resume format. You can make simple changes that have a big impact on how your resume looks. Check out our tips for improving the format of your resume:
- Avoid using big blocks of text and extensive bulleted lists to describe your job responsibilities, skills, and qualifications. Instead, use a combination of small paragraphs (3-5 lines) and short bulleted lists (3-5 bullets).
- Submit your resume to hiring managers as a PDF. Other formats such as MS Word or other word processing applications may cause shifts in text when hiring managers open your resume on their device. A PDF will preserve your resume in its original formatting.
- Use a professional font. According to Hubspot, a few of the top resume fonts for 2019 include Times New Roman, Helvetica, Arial, and Calibri. Avoid using cursive or highly stylized fonts, as they will be hard for hiring managers to read, and they’re a sure-fire way to get hiring managers to take an immediate “hard pass” on your resume.
- Do NOT include a photo. Our Director of Recruiting Suzanne Rupert advises against including a photograph of yourself in your resume, even if it looks professional.
2. Lack of action verbs. We know, we know. You probably already know that action verbs are crucial in resumes. But you may not know that you’re missing out on critical opportunities to use them in some of the job responsibilities that you list. For example, phrases like “Responsible for” and “Responsibilities include” are passive. They take up space, and they prevent hiring managers from being able to identify your qualifications quickly. Make those phrases pack a punch by beginning them with action verbs. For example, instead of saying, “Responsible for greeting and directing office visitors,” say, “Greet and direct office visitors.” Notice how much more power the revised version conveys, and how much faster it was to read.
3. Lack of numbers. Adding numbers or metrics to your resume will demonstrate to hiring managers the scope of work for which you were responsible. For example, if your resume states that you “Managed team of interns,” that gives hiring managers only a vague idea of what that management entailed. However, if you stated, “Managed team of 3 interns” or “Managed team of 20 interns,” you provide a much clearer picture of what you did and what you can handle in your next job. You can (and should) add numbers to any major projects that you completed. For example, if you implemented a new social media strategy at your company, be sure to include any positive data that would indicate success, i.e. # of followers gained, increase in engagement rate, amount of website traffic gained, etc.
4. Using a general resume. Let’s clear this up right now. There’s no such thing as a “general resume.” You can have a “master resume,” a running document of all of your jobs, skills, certifications, volunteer work, awards, etc, from which you pull relevant content to create a shorter, targeted resume. But applying to a job with a general resume will not make you stand out from the competition. Hiring managers have a lot of resumes to review. They need to be able to identify your relevant qualifications immediately and if they can’t, they’ll move on without skipping a beat. When you see a job listing that interests you, read it carefully, note any repeated words or phrases, and revise your resume accordingly. This will show hiring managers that you view their job opening as important enough for you to take the time to create a clearly targeted resume, crafted just for them.
5. Typos. Read your resume aloud before submitting it. Typos are easy to fix, hard to catch, and if you miss one, you look lazy and unprofessional. Once hiring managers come across a grammatical, spelling, or formatting error in your resume, they may stop reading and eliminate you from their pool of applicants. We cannot repeat this enough: Read your resume aloud. This is one of the easiest ways to identify typos. After you read it aloud, have someone else read it, then read it by yourself one more time before sending it off. You’ll thank us.
