Top 4 Resume Mistakes To Avoid

This post is about productivity. This is about getting a better job. To land a better job, you first need to have necessary skills, sometimes that means getting specially trained. The next step is to brush up your resume. It’ absolutely required that your resume must be a top class document. It shouldn’t have mistakes in it.

Your resume says a lot about you, it’s a showcase for the prospective employer, and you want to make sure it is saying the right things. Make your resume work for you and not against you by knowing what common resume mistakes to avoid.

As a manager I often take interviews, I short-list resumes and the very first thing I look for is the grammatical errors and errors in numbers. If someone is graduated in 2010 he can’t have more than 7 years of experience. When I see such person claiming 10 years of experience I toss the resume out.

Here are the top 4 mistakes which are most-common in the resumes I came across with.

Grammatical or Typographical Errors

One of the quickest ways to ruin your chance at a new job is by having grammar or spelling errors on your resume. This indicates a lack of concern for quality work.

This can be especially problematic in fields such as accounting where attention to detail is paramount to success. Always proofread your resume before sending it out.

There are some free grammar softwares available in the market. For my blog, I use Grammarly plugin which automatically corrects my sentences, the same way a spell check works, basically.

You should check your resume with one such spelling and grammar checker software.

Generic Resume

Employers know that you are probably applying for more than one job at a time. You do not need to spell this out for them by giving everyone the same resume.

Tailoring your resume to the exact job you hope to get or specific keywords in the job posting not only tells headhunters that you care enough to pay attention to what their clients want but also helps them more easily determine how closely you fit the ideal candidate they are seeking for each position.

Vague Wording 

While making sure your resume reflects the position you seek is important, you do not want it to read exactly like the job description.

The purpose of your resume is to make you stand out among all the other candidates, and vague phrasing does the opposite.

List your specific accomplishments and quantify your achievements, such as how big a budget you handled or how many accounts you reconciled.

Do not list your responsibilities, rather list your achievements. Rather than saying that you were responsible for mangling restaurant, mention that you led 20 persons successfully and increased the restaurant turn over from $100,000 a month to $120,000 a month.

Crowded Page

Recruiters and employers peruse many resumes, and those with complicated formatting or fonts that are too small may seem like more trouble to read that they are worth.

Detail your accomplishments, but do so in a way that is concise, and organize your resume in a way that is easy to read.  Making the job of a recruiter easier increases the chances that you will get the chance to interview for a job of your own.

Make sure you use only one font in your resume. At the same time, there must be a proper use of the space. You shouldn’t write wall to wall. You should use bullet points when you can and make the resume no more than 3 pages long.

Too many bold and italics also decreases readability. Make sure you use the headers properly as well.

Readers, let us know your feedback and suggestion. What’s your experience with resumes?