Resume Mistakes to Avoid

In your personal life or everyday life, you may get a second chance to rectify something. But if your resume is rejected for silly but glaring mistakes, you may or may not get a second chance to convince the recruiter to hire you. Your aim to write a resume should be getting a good job interview and keeping your resume away from trash box. This articles talks about some of the mistakes which can be avoided in order to make a great resume. Some of them are as follows:

• A Cluttered One: Make the resume as simple as it is possible. Be it in respect to the font, font size, formatting or anything, create the resume in such a manner, so that it becomes readable even at a once hasty glance. Make the headings bold, give proper spacing between the headings, justify the text and segregate sections correctly. De-clutter the resume as much as possible. Hit a perfect balance between white space and text so that it looks nice and comprehensible. Do not put too narrow margin. When you try to take a printout, it may look little distorted.

• No Mention of Achievements: The resume is your golden chance to convey a recruiter about your candidature to the prospective company. Do not miss this chance. Take time to talk about your achievements along with your roles and responsibilities.

  Roles are more or less the same but achievements are something which sets your resume apart from others. Mentioning them would generate interest in recruiter’s mind and can compel him/her to think that you have not just been stuck to your 8-9 hours duty but went beyond to prove your worth.

• Not so relevant experience: It is quite possible that during college you might have worked in McDonald's or any other restaurants to earn your pocket money. But that should not be necessarily mentioned in your resume. Include it when that experience is somewhat is in line with your future job outlook as well.

  For example, in this case, if you are looking for an opportunity in Hospitality, Hotel Industry only, then you can mention your college part time job which should show that since college days, you understand the importance of a customer and know how to service them for achieving repeat and referral business.

• Too much of Personal Information: I have seen some resumes wherein they have mentioned their own name (though it has already been mentioned on top, father’s name, mother’s name, their occupation, current address, permanent address and stuff like that. But believe me; a recruiter has nothing to do with this personal information. So, do not eat up the space of your resume with this information.

• I, Me, Mine: In a professional resume, there should be no use of personal pronouns. It is an understood fact that your resume is about you only and all the information is related to you. So, do not specifically use the words like she, he, etc. Use present tense for the current organization and past tense for the previous organization. Do not use present tense for the previous company and vice-versa.

• An unprofessional email id: This is one of the reasons your resume can become an object of laughing. I have seen resumes with email id like badshahno1@yahoo.com, cutiepie@rediffmail.com, loveuforever@gmail.com. Even if you have one similar to these, try not including it in your resume. Keep them for personal use and create a new one which can be used for professional use.

• Length of the resume: Though they say that one-page resume is an ideal one, still the debate of what should be an ideal length of the resume, is eternal. There is no harm in making a 2 page resume, but make sure all the important content is mentioned and highlighted in the first page itself. I am not in favour of cluttering and forcefully fitting all the content on one page, so as to complete it within 1 page only. I think that is not a very good idea. If it creeps on to the next page, let it be, because giving proper spacing is also very important to make it readable.

• Key Word Missing: Recruiters, nowadays, search resumes through keywords. Either they search resume through applicant tracking system or search in the database basis keywords relevant to the vacant position. So, make sure your resume has those relevant keywords suiting to your profile. But keywords should be relevant to your profile. If there are wrong keywords written on your resume, chances are there that your resume might not get shortlisted and even if it is shortlisted, it may not be for the position you are looking for.

• Spelling/Grammatical Errors: These errors look very minor, but they have a deep impact on your future. So, it is better to carry out a spell check before you submit your resume to someone. Sometimes the auto spell check also does not catch the mistake. In that case, proofread the resume thoroughly from top to bottom and then get it checked by some family member or friends. Even typo errors are sometimes not spared by hiring managers. By the time we finish writing something, be it a letter, resume, cover letter, biography or story, we tend to become little attached with it and we just go with the flow of the mind. Hence it becomes very difficult to identify your own mistake. So, an unbiased eye and mind is very much required for proofreading the document that we have written.

• Formatting errors: After the content part is done for the resume, the most important thing is the presentation which cannot be ignored completely. So, make sure your resume is readable, presentable and understandable. Do not use too small font, nor too big. Do not go below font size 10. Also give proper spacing between the sections and lines, so that a recruiter does not have to take too much pain to go through your resume. Make a bulleted list rather than long heavy paragraphs. A neat, clean and clutter-free format is appreciated and valued.

• Too much of Creativity: Creativity is good, but too much of it can make the resume complicated. Recruiters do prefer short, precise, neat and simple resume which covers up all your organizational and educational background appropriately. So, do not go overboard with your creativity unless you are applying for a designer, decorator or artist profile.

• Do not Lie: There should be no place of lying or bluffing in a professional resume as it might get caught by the recruiter eventually. And I am sure you don’t want to get into such trouble situation and embarrassment of being caught for something which is not real. Background check and cross checking will surely happen before you get the job. And faking things will have a negative impact on your interview ahead; the application itself may get rejected on the first hand.

• Avoid Abbreviations: It happens in IT/Technology profiles. There are lot of short forms but try to avoid using them in your resume. The one who is reading your profile may not be aware of the terminologies or jargons. And even if you are using the acronym of any word, I would suggest elaborating it within bracket. For example, if you are writing something like, “Developed a GUI (Graphical User Interface)”. This is how you can elaborate GUI within the bracket. It will clear out the meaning and will be easy for a hiring manager to understand it.

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The article is Written By “Prachi Juneja” and Reviewed By Management Study Guide Content Team. MSG Content Team comprises experienced Faculty Member, Professionals and Subject Matter Experts. To Know more, click on About Us. The use of this material is free for learning and education purpose. Please reference authorship of content used, including link(s) to ManagementStudyGuide.com and the content page url.