At the risk of sounding shallow, how we package ourselves tells the world a lot about us. Now exactly what it says may or may not be a true reflection of who we are, so as it’s yapping anyways, why not have it say something that we wish it to say?
It is often said that “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression“. Not quite sure who coined that but kudos, ’cause people like to refer to it.
Of course, first impressions may be more applicable in certain situations than in others. In some circumstances, even though people may always remember how snotty you appeared when they met you, you may have the opportunity to expose your kind and fun self to them again or over a period of time, and so this ‘perception’ of you may change.
Not so with résumés.
I’ve been out of it for a minute, but I’ve been up the the task recently of going through résumés to find individuals to fill certain positions. ’They’ always tell you what to do to make your résumé stand out, and we take heed (more or less), but I don’t think one realizes the gravity of what ‘they’ say about proper résumé writing until one has to sift through hundreds of résumés to fill just one position.
Interesting indeed.
Having just recently re-entered the working world, I can testify that writing your résumé is a huge pain in the ever expanding derrière. Writing one that is specific to the position, is what is recommended, which must be one of the most difficult tasks on the face of the planet, especially when you’ve just completed a change of career.
As well, largely because of the state of the economy, you may want to utilize all of the experience that you’ve gathered along the years to cast your net as wide as possible in your job search, so you think about looking into different types of jobs. Does that mean you have to write different résumés? That would be a yes.
Suppose you are re-entering the world of work after being out for a while, either as a result of going back to school, taking an extended vacation, or perhaps taking some time off to raise your kid(s), should the way you structure your résumé look different from someone’s who is currently holding down a 9-5? Yes indeedy.
There seems to be a lot of rules when it comes to résumé writing, and unless you are benefiting from workplace nepotism, these are rules that you should try your best to be familiar with. It should take you some time well to put your résumé together, and for good reason – You have to best capture your greatest yet relevant qualities and achievements on paper, for a 20 second read.
If that takes you just about 10 minutes to put together, anyone who reads it will come to the conclusion that you either haven’t accomplished much, or aren’t seriously interested in propelling your career. Unfair maybe, but such is life.
There are tons of mistakes commonly made in résumé writing. Among them, the most popular tend to be:
1. Typos.
Spelling
Under this category we shall list the blatant typographical errors or typos. In these instances, the word doesn’t exist. It’s just wrong, wrong, wrong, doesn’t-exist-in-the-english-language type of incorrect. These are ones where the red squiggly line appears under the ‘word’ in question in the Microsoft Word application, and the person reading your resume wonders if you were even looking at the computer screen when you typed the résumé.
Grammar
This is the fun one. The one where the spell-check programme gives you the thumbs up because everything is just swanky. It’s the one that you never see coming. I’d imagine that this is a favourite of Editors and other such professionals, because it sure does give me a grand time.
For example forgetting to put the ‘l’ in the title “General Manager, Public Relations”.
Scary.
Next.
Get fresh eyes to proofread your résumé. Sometimes we’ve been looking at it so long that we know what we wish to say so we read what we believe we wrote, and not what’s actually written on the paper.
2. Being a blabber mouth.
Waaaaay too much info. Zero focus. It says:
“Just kill them with general info and call it a day why not? They’re looking for people aren’t they? So they must take the time to read it.”
Negative captain.
Next.
I mean these people have at most 20 seconds. What do you want them to see?
Using what is referred to as ‘key words’ not only gets you better results, but I’ve found they actually help you condense your résumé too. Think action. Verbs, in the past tense, and don’t forget the ‘how’. Kinda sorta like:
- Expanded something by x percent by doing something
- Created something for some event by utilizing some resource or the other.
- Solved some problem by taking the initiative to calculate something or the other.
Something like that. No-one’s testing your subject-verb agreement; it’s acceptable to just use phrases.
Omit all the first person (“I”) references. Yes, we know that there is no “I” in “TEAM” but there is surely one in “WIN”, but we need not let everyone know that this is etched on our Coat of Arms.
3. Listing duties instead of achievements.
HR personnel are pretty familiar with job descriptions, after all they construct them. So listing all the duties that you were paid to perform doesn’t say much other than the fact that you went to work everyday and did your job. Fantastic. You get an ‘A’ for showing up and being on time.
Now what about you performance?
Zought, because of course you failed to list one thing you accomplished in the 5+ years of working at your last place of employment.
Next.
4. Announcing your age via loud speaker.
I mean seriously, if you have 15+ years work experience after having completed some tertiary level education, why would you still list your summer jobs in University?
Or the more classic example, your high school? You’re just begging your potential interviewer to call you ‘old’.
Next.
Here’s a heads up: we’re grown. Professionally, no-one cares what high-school you went to. Leave that for awkward silence, filler-chat at the coffee machine when you do get hired. Move past your glory days already, so that you can make room for now, your Grown ‘n Sexy days.
Just put what’s important – your accomplishments.
.
There are many others, just search “Common resume mistakes” and you’ll find them.
But if you have a stack of résumés in front of you, there is no time to even read anything to find a typo, or surmise that the individual is talking about duties that have no relevance to the situation, or the fact that s/he’s lying on the résumé.
Therefore, my number one greatest résumé errors of all time is, one word:
5. FORMAT
or lack thereof.
Presentation. Presentation. Presentation is often an integral component to your career success.
This should come as no surprise, after all presentation is key in other areas of our lives – in our homes, our social interactions, and even as it concerns how we dress ourselves.
So yes, it applies to résumés. How you package information can determine how well it will be received, if it will be received at all.
Bullets, structure, the use of bold and/ or italicized headings and well and consistently spaced information on a résumé for example, says a whole lot more about you than any ‘key word’ can. It screams “Professional” and “Detail oriented” for starters, and which employer doesn’t like that?
Man, a well structured résumé can get you singled out in an instant.
K.I.S.S. – Keep it Simple Stupid – (an acronym, I’m not referring to any particular person as such. Thanks much.)
No fancy colours or curly cursive writing please. No flashing animated text. It makes hard on the eyes man. Sheesh. Don’t be singled out for the wrong reason.
And make it fit. One page, two pages, three pages – you decide depending on your qualifications and the position that you are applying for. This one line on the last page business doesn’t nearly cut it, having half a page of info is just as bad.
An originally structured, solidly formatted resume alone may not necessarily land you the job, but it can at least get you in the ’second glance’ pile that’s one step closer to an interview.
That’s all you need; an opportunity to showcase your greatness. That’s what you were looking for isn’t it?.
The rest is totally up to you.
.
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