Resumé

A good resume is a ticket to the interview. To write a resume that will provide you with work, you need to know what mistakes in the resume prevent the employer from appreciating you. Before sending the next letter to your employer, make sure that you are able to avoid these miscalculations.

1. Wrong Photo

An unsuccessful photo dramatically reduces the applicant’s chances of employer interest.

Frequent errors in the resume:

• The photo is not serious: from a party, vacation. You can post photos with natural attractions in only one case: if you climb Mount Everest. In all other cases, the photo should be official.
• The applicant in the photo is not alone. It is better to leave a photo of family, friends, pets for social networks. There may be exceptions. For example, if you are a business coach, you can post a photo from the training where other people are visible; however, you should be viewed better than other characters.

2. Mention Work Experience Not Related to the Resume

If during your student years you worked as a promoter in the summer, it is not necessary to indicate in the resume. Only if you are a university graduate, you have little experience, then each line in the resume is worth its weight.

If you are an accomplished specialist with work experience of more than 10 years, do not clutter up your resume with a list of jobs that are not interesting to the employer. It is better to focus on those positions where you: a) managed to achieve significant success, b) we are talking about large, prestigious companies, c) you held responsible/leadership positions.

3. A Detailed Description of the Hobby

A hobby characterizes the applicant indirectly. For example, if a person plays football, basketball, and other team games, he definitely has the makings of a team player. If a person is interested in chess, he most likely loves thoughtful intellectual activity. A job seeker who enjoys painting has good taste, etc. Hobby information is valuable, but not so great. Skills and experience are more important.

4. ADetailed Description of Personal Qualities

It makes sense to mention personal qualities that are directly related to the vacancy, while it is important to give an example confirming your presence of these qualities. For example, if you write that you are quickly learning new things, then next to this statement such a remark would look good: “I have independently studied two foreign languages.”

5. False Information

This is not necessarily a lie – the placement of knowingly untruthful information in a good craftresumes.com. Sometimes there is a temptation to embellish reality. For example, in your jurisdiction, there was a group of specialists of 5 people, and you write that there were ten subordinates. It does not seem to matter, five or ten, while the chances of getting an invitation to an interview are higher.

Another trick that may come to mind is to prove yourself to be a more competent specialist than you really are. For example, you see from the job description that you are suitable for all the criteria, except for one thing: you don’t own any technique or computer program. Do not write that you own it well – at the interview, the untruth will become apparent.

6. Lack of Description of Achievements

Most often, the section on work experience describes tasks and functions for each specific position. Everything is correct, but it is highly desirable to indicate achievements. After all, the employer is interested not only in what you can do but also what specific results you can achieve.

Examples of achievements can be given for each job position, or you can place all the achievements that you consider necessary to mention in a separate block—a block that concludes the section on work experience. You can head the block “Achievements” and list them.

7. Lack of Contact Information

This may seem strange, but some job seekers forget to provide their contact phone number and email address. Forgivable banal oversight, but it can cost the applicant real prospects.

8. The Resume is Too Long

Typical errors in the resume: too many documents can be attributed to them. Moreover, this happens not only with candidates with long experience – from 20 years or more. Young job seekers sometimes make too long resumes, because they are fond of details. Ideally, the summary is 1 page.

Do not confuse resumes with CVs. In CV, you can collect the entire “track record,” and this will not be a mistake. Resume, unlike a CV, is a presentation document; its task is not to give the employer comprehensive information about you but to show that you are in the right position.

9. Resume Mismatch with Job Requirements

For example, a vacancy indicates that they are looking for a specialist who is ready for frequent business trips, and your resume says “Not ready for business trips.”

Or in the vacancy announcement it is written that the working day is irregular, and in your resume, for the purpose of the search, it says: “Work with a normalized work schedule.”

Never forget that your resume should be as close as possible to the requirements of the vacancy. If you see a large number of discrepancies between the requirements and your qualifications this is not a question of updating your resume, but of finding vacancies that are more suitable for your capabilities.

10. Visual Congestion

How do you react to a continuous text in which there is no “air” at all – an empty space that separates semantic blocks from each other, no subtitles, and the “mess” of words? If you go to a site with such “sheets” of text, you will close the page, right?

The employer also perceives the resume. The first impression of the document is formed in 6 seconds. The employer runs through the text with his eyes, and he should immediately see the main thing that interests him in it: your skills, work experience, achievements.

Conclusion: Fix Your Resume Mistakes Right Now

In order to create a good resume, it is enough to look for examples of good works on the Internet or imagine yourself in the place of HR. What would you think of your resume if you were an employer? Victory is usually in simplicity. The main thing is not to overdo it.

Self-Declarations on Résumés

Consider the following assertions from résumés that I reviewed recently:

• “Ambitious, career oriented, uniquely qualified, results-driven professional with outstanding academic preparation and exceptional industrial experience in applied research and design.”
• “Extremely strong, aggressive, self-sufficient writer with excellent technical skills and ability to learn new technologies quickly.”

The trouble with these statements is that they amount to unoriginal self-declarations. It is as though these candidates put on a crown and proclaimed themselves the kings and queens of the land of have-everything-an-employer-needs-skills. Most candidates do not realize such jargon can, in fact, be a turn-off.

Show than Tell

A résumé is, in essence, a documentation of your achievements and recognitions. Your résumé should not explicitly declare such characteristics as hard-working, entrepreneurial, self-starting, etc. Instead, your résumé should describe your accomplishments in such a way that a reader infers these skills in you.

Admittedly, describing your accomplishments to imply you are a “hard worker,” “self-starter,” or “team player” is difficult.

• To present yourself as “hard-working,” describe your part-time employment, serving as captain of the soccer team, leading a student club. Mention your high GPA and academic projects.
• To present yourself as “results-driven,” show how your projects contributed to your organization’s goals and bottom line: include phrases like, “saved 10% costs,” or “improved capacity by 18%,” etc.

Avoid proclamations, jargon and clichéd superlatives. Write your résumé to include more than a mere assemblage of personal particulars. Help the reader connect to you through your résumé and get a picture of your personality, unique skills and characteristics.

The terms résumé or curriculum vitae (CV) are near-synonyms and often used interchangeably. The sense of these terms, however, may differ in certain geographies.

Usage in North America

In North America, there is a difference between the terms résumé and curriculum vitae in terms of the target audience, purpose and length.

The term résumé refers to a concise summary of a candidate’s credentials for the purpose of seeking employment in industry or the non-profit sector. A résumé, therefore, primarily summarizes the candidate’s educational background and professional experience. The preferred length of a resume is one or two pages.

A curriculum vitae is a more exhaustive record of a candidate’s qualifications and achievements primarily for seeking positions in academia and research. A curriculum vitae may include publications, fellowships and scholarships, invited lectures and talks, research grants and patents secured, etc. Some curriculum vitae contain personal details as well. Generally, there is no page-limit on a curriculum vitae. For an example, see the curriculum vitae of Donald Knuth, computer science pioneer and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University.

Usage in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth

In the United Kingdom and members of the Commonwealth, the term curriculum vitae is used for seeking employment in industry, the non-profit sector, academia or research. The term résumé is not traditionally used. The format and length of the curriculum vitae depends on the target of the curriculum vitae (industry/not-for-profit or research/academia) as in North America.

Usage in Other Countries

In some countries–India and Australia, for example–the terms résumé and curriculum vitae may be used interchangeably. In India, the term ‘bio-data’ refers to a résumé as well.

Choice between Résumé and Curriculum Vitae

Write your résumé or curriculum vitae to suit the preferred style and format of your target audience (industry or academia) irrespective of what the document is termed.

Do not include the word ‘Résumé’ or phrase ‘Curriculum Vitae’ at the top of your document—use the valuable space to enhance your document either by adding further details of your accomplishments or by increasing white space around various sections of your résumé to make it more visually appealing.

Further Reading

• The One-page Résumé Rule
• Fonts and Text Size for Résumés

Hurriedly-Prepared Résumés are Often Inadequate

Recently, I participated in a career fair at a large university. I staffed my company’s booth and collected résumés for interviews my colleagues would conduct later this month.

In collecting résumés, I observed that a fair number of students’ résumés had lots of errors: spelling mistakes, clutter, poor organization, and so on—overall, incoherent portrayals of their credentials and achievements.

Disappointedly, I asked a few students when they had prepared their résumés for the career fair. Not surprisingly, most students responded with a “over the weekend” or “earlier this morning” answer. “Last night, I looked at the résumé I had prepared for last year’s career fair and updated it,” one student revealed.

Overcome Procrastination: Keep Your Résumé Ready

For many of us, preparing a comprehensive résumé is an overwhelming—if not the most difficult—element of the job-search process. We feel intimidated by the challenge of discussing our credentials and achievements, presenting them in a manner that will impress hiring managers—and do all this in just one page.

The result is that we often procrastinate on preparing or updating our résumés. When we need to prepare a résumé ahead of a career fair or when we discover a lead, we tend to put something together in haste and expect it to work efficiently. We do not realize that our résumés may compete with hundreds of other résumés for every job offer out there.

Update your Résumé Frequently

• If you are in college, revise your résumé at the beginning of each semester. Add relevant details from the past semester: particulars of your part-time work or course projects and update details such as your GPA or aggregate scores.
• If you work, update your résumé after each quarterly-performance review with your supervisor. Add relevant details from your projects and assignments from the recent past. Every year, after your annual-performance review, update your résumé thoroughly.
• Review each section of your résumé critically and question yourself, “Is this section relevant? Is there anything more worthwhile that I could replace this section with?”
• Review the details in each section and ask yourself, “What else could I add to this section? How could I better present this detail?”
• Get your résumé critiqued. If you are at college, consult a career counselor at your college’s career centre. If you are employed, show your résumé to colleagues, mentors, or others who may represent the intended audience for your résumé. Request them to critique every detail and make sure they understand details of your achievements.

Concluding Thoughts

By updating your résumé frequently, you can reduce the anxiety of preparing an impressive résumé at short notice. With reduced stress, you can focus on preparing for the other aspects of your job-search process—researching specific companies represented at the career fair or preparing to sell yourself to interesting companies.

A number of résumés list two or three professional references. Others may contain a variation of the phrase “References available upon request.”

Neither is necessary. Here are four reasons.

1. References are pertinent only during the later part of the job-search process: after a potential employer has interviewed you and desires to check others’ impressions of you prior to extending you a job-offer.
2. As a candidate, you would want to be the first person to describe yourself to the potential employer. You would not like the employer to contact your references beforehand and form an opinion of you ahead of your interview.
3. If you post your résumé online (on your college’s career website or at a job-search site such as monster.com,) you would not want to make public your references’ contact information.
4. Employers understand that you will give them a list of references when asked for.

Best Practice on Résumé References

Listing references is not the best use of space on a one-page résumé. Eliminate the list of references or the “available upon request” phrase from your résumé.

Instead, on a separate sheet of paper, prepare a list of two or three professional references. For each reference, include name, contact information and a phrase about the nature of your relationship with the reference. Bring this sheet to your interview and present it when the potential employer asks for references.

Use the valuable space to enhance your résumé either by adding further details of your accomplishments or by increasing white space around various sections of your résumé to make it more visually appealing.

Your résumé is your personal advertisement. The purpose of a résumé, therefore, is to sell you, not to describe you. In order to grab a recruiter’s interest and create a positive impression within a few seconds, your résumé should be comprehensive and tidy.

One-page résumés are appropriate for college candidates (entry-level candidates, to be more specific,) and candidates with less than ten years of work experience. Such candidates rarely have substantial accomplishments to justify a résumé of more than a page in length.

More-experienced candidates may use two pages to describe their accomplishments. Even here, one-page résumés are recommended. Recruiters will survey the second page only if the contents of the first page are appealing.

A one-page résumé acknowledges the importance of a recruiter’s time. A two-page résumé is a sign of disregard.

Compact your Résumé

Follow these guidelines to consolidate your résumé content into one page.

• Comprehension is crucial. Recruiters hate wordy résumés. They first glance through the organization of a résumé and quickly skim over particulars in key sections. A strong, comprehensive presentation is consequently appealing.
• Avoid a tell-it-all résumé. Avoid the common mistake of providing too many details. Leave some details for discussion in a potential interview.
• Restrict accomplishments under each position held to two or three bullet points only. Weed out unimportant details. Use phrases if necessary.
• Do not cram. Do not reduce page margins and font-sizes or eliminate white space. Résumés crowded with information are hard to read.

Conclusion

A one-page résumé is usually long enough to present all the essential information concisely and captivatingly. It can easily engage a recruiter and convince him/her that your background merits further consideration.