By Brad Karsh, President, JobBound
1. Writing Job Descriptions Versus Job Accomplishments: If what is written in a resume can be written by the person who did the job, before, with, or after you, then you haven’t done yourself justice. Resumes need to be infused with numbers, accomplishment and specificity.
2. Using Strict Chronological Resumes: Recruiting Directors skim over a resume in 10-15 seconds. If you worked as a waiter at the Olive Garden for the last six months, but as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs prior to that, you should put the Goldman Sachs job first on your resume.
3. Mishandling Entry Layout: The most important information should be listed left to right. For example: “President, ABC Company, Chicago, IL, 2003-2009”
4. Simply Listing Awards: The recruiting director probably didn’t work at your company, so they don’t know what the award is. Use one line to describe why you received an honor or award.
5. Inserting “References Available Upon Request”: Aren’t everyone’s references available upon request?
6. Writing a Fluffy Objective: Anyone can write “to use my outstanding communication, leadership and analytical skills to advance quickly through a large multi-national corporation.” It’s just wasted time and space.
7. Incorporating Gimmicks, Fancy Paper and Odd Layouts: Laminated resumes on purple paper tell the recruiting director that there isn’t much substance in the content.
8. Presenting Many-Page Resumes: Two pages is the maximum, even if you’re a CEO. One page should be sufficient for anyone working less than five years.
9. Having Grammatical/Spelling/Diction Errors: You might as well just drop the resume in the garbage. There is simply no excuse!
