Top 10 Common Resume Mistakes You Should Never Make
These common resume mistakes you need to fix them right now – yeah, that’s right!
It is very easy to make mistakes in your resume and extremely difficult to fix the damage, when an employer get your resume in his hands. Thus, prevention is crucial, whether you are writing your first CV or a review for the job search in the middle of your career. Check out this guide so as not to repeat the most common mistakes in your resume.
10 Most Common Resume Mistakes You Can’t Afford to Make
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Typos and Grammatical Errors!
Your resume must be grammatically perfect! If not, employers will read between the lines and draw not-so-flattering conclusions about you, like: “this person cannot write properly” or “this person obviously doesn’t care about his image, the position or the company.”
- Not being specific
Employers need to understand what you have done and what you have accomplished in your previous jobs. For example:
- Worked with employees in a restaurant.
- Hired, trained and supervised more than 20 employees in a restaurant with annual sales of more than 2 million Naira.
Both phrases could describe the same person, but the detailed descriptions given in example No. 2 will draw more attention to a potential employer.
- A resume that makes for all employers!
Whenever you try to develop a generic resume and send it to all employers, it almost always ends up in the recycling bin. Employers want you to write a resume specifically for them. They expect you to show clearly how and why you fit the position in the company.
- Highlighting Duties Instead of Accomplishments
It’s easy to fall into the trap where you start listing job duties on your resume. For example:
- Monitored group meetings and recorded minutes.
- Worked with children in a nursery environment.
- Update departmental files.
Employers, however, do not care so much about what you do and what you have accomplished in your various activities. They’re looking for statements more like these:
- Used laptop to record weekly meeting minutes and compiled them in a Microsoft Word-based file for future organizational reference.
- Developed 3 daily activities for preschool-age children and prepared them for a 10 minutes holiday performance programs.
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Reorganized 10 years’ worth of unwieldy files, making them easily accessible to department members.
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- Lengthy expressions – A few information!
Despite what one may read or hear, there are no real rules governing the ideal length of a CV. Why? Because people have different tastes and expectations as reference to writing a professional CV.
This does not mean that you should start sending a resume 5-pages, of course! In general, you should limit yourself to a maximum of about 2-pages. But don’t feel that you must use two pages, if you can do it in 1-page. Conversely, do not leave important information out of your resume, simply to comply with an arbitrary standard of 1-page!
See also: Effective Resume Tips Your Employer Cannot Resist
- Bad Objective– Wrong target!
Employers do read your resume objective statement, but too often they plow through vague expressions like, “Seeking a dynamic position that offers professional growth.” Give employers something specific and, most importantly, something that focuses on their needs as well as your own. Example: “A challenging entry-level marketing position that allows me to contribute my skills and experience in fund-raising for non-profit organizations.”
- No action verbs!
Avoid using phrases like “responsible”. Instead, use action verbs: “Resolved user questions as part of an IT help desk serving over 4,000 students and staff.”
- Leaving out Important Information
You may be tempted, for example, to eliminate the jobs you have done to earn extra money in school. Usually, though, the soft skills you have gained from those experiences (e.g. the work ethic, time management, etc.) are much more important to employers than you might think.
- Aesthetically (Visually) too “heavy”
If your resume is written with five different fonts, scattered bullet points and asynchronous order, it is most likely to give the employer a headache. So, it is advisable to show your resume to other people before sending it to prospective employers. – Do they find it visually appealing? If what you have is hard on the eyes of your friend, it would definitely be for the employer who will read it, so you should review it.
- Incorrect Contact Details!
I once worked with a student whose resume seemed highly professional, but he wasn’t getting any job offers from employers. So, one day I asked him jokingly if the phone number he had given in his resume was correct. As if by chance … It was not! Once he corrected his contact details, he began to get calls from employers. Moral of the story: To avoid these common resume mistakes, always double-check even the smallest detail on your resume – better sooner than later.
If you would like more information about most common resume mistakes, best resume, how to write a CV and CV writing tips, subscribe to our website, Ansacareers.com and create your own professional sample resume!
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