5 Huge Resume Mistakes
Here are the 5 reasons why resumes are rejected. Please use this
as a checklist to confirm that your resume does not fall into
any of these traps.
1. All Features, no Benefits Make sure you market yourself by
highlighting the benefits that you can offer to the job and
company. If you fail to market yourself, no one else will market
you. Your resume is your first and last chance. Unfortunately,
if you have few or no benefits or if your benefits are hidden
away in some dark dingy backwater on line 200 of your resume,
the reader will give up long before reaching there.
Read the Job Description and Person Spec. thoroughly. Reflect on
the essential and desirable skills and your experiences
pertaining to the vacancy. Then you should turn to your features
and consider how each one relates to the skills required AND how
you can convert your features into benefits.
Remember an effective resume is a marketing tool...your most
POWERFUL one when it comes to the job search.
Attributes like, "excellent interpersonal skills" are a FEATURE
(of you). What the employer is interested in is "what's in it
for me?" if I interview you...."being able to communicate
patiently and clearly with customers" is the BENEFIT of
excellent interpersonal skills.
"A driving license," is a FEATURE, "willing to travel to
clients," is the BENEFIT.
Pack your benefits into your Statement Summary, which should be
at the top of page one of your resume and lead with your USP or
your BIGGEST benefit.
2. Personal Opinions It's a big no-no. Firstly, giving personal
opinions will be seen by the reader as being unprofessional and
something you may even do in future regarding them! Secondly,
its just that...an opinion. When personal opinions are stated on
a resume, it can come across as moaning. If there is something
unflattering...omit it.
In an interview, you will be able to explain things from your
resume and it sounds a lot better then than through a few coarse
sentences on a resume.
3. Inadequate or Outdated Contact Details It is surprising how
many candidates give no contact details or give an old phone
number, email address or postal address. This is simply because
they have not proof read their resume adequately. Other
candidates, give a means of contact such as an email address or
phone number that they check irregularly. Only give out contact
details that you will answer directly or check regularly
(preferably 3 or 4 times a day). It is often the difference
between an interview and a rejection.
4. Spelling and Grammatical Errors Proof read once for spelling,
once for grammar, again for general content and once again for
flow. Never try to proof read once and cover everything. Most
candidates do try this, but unfortunately, if you adopt the
"one-read-covers-all" your resume is very likely to have errors.
If you can, get a friend to read it and spell and grammar check
it also. After they have read it, do they have any questions? Is
anything unclear to them? Will it be unclear to the recruiter?
Can you amend it? What are your friend's suggestions?
Don't rely solely on your spellchecker as it would miss these
common mistakes:-
"part time" or "party time"
"great" or "grate"
"six" or "sex" or "sax"
"rapid" or "rabid"
"clerk" or "cleric"
A good way to check a resume is to ask a friend to read the
resume to you, whilst you follow a copy. It's amazing how many
errors you can pick up. And it is quite a thought provoking
exercise having your resume read aloud. This method is what's
known as "reading back" and is adopted in the legal and
financial professions for important documents.
5. Fluff, Long-windedness and Jargon With up to 400 resumes per
vacancy, recruiters have very limited time. They will spend on
average no more than 20 seconds on each resume. They want the
applicant to make their job easier by getting to the point
quickly. Reveal the benefits of hiring you for the job and cut
the fluff and superfluous language. Remember what the MDR is of
your resume...to get the interview.
It is not to reveal what a nice person you are, or how many
children you have or that your sports team won 6 games on the
trot while you were captain. YAWN YAWN
"Sometimes some people can take an age to make the point that
they intended to make at the start, but then they get carried
away with padding and irrelevant facts within their sentence,
which leads the recruiter who is reading to conclude they have
not read their resume, nor know where the heck this point is
leading."
Long-windedness does not help if you see what I mean. :-)
Try this motto...
"Get to the point!"
Candidates who include fluff, cliche, long-windedness and those
than hide behind esoteric words break the flow of their resume
and thus alienate the reader.
Communicate the information necessary to evaluate your ability
to do the job. Use language that is appropriate to the industry
or field, but be aware that jargon may not speak to those who
are intermediaries between you and the ultimate hiring manager.
Your resume must appeal to the widest possible audience. It is
often said that you should aim your resume at an 18-year old
with limited knowledge of your industry, if you want to appeal
to the widest audience...it is like journalists are taught when
writing articles to reach the widest possible audience in a
clear and concise way.
============================================== InterviewSell
Overdelivering products at affordable prices. "Resumes That Get
Interviews" "Interviewing For Job Offers" Try our e-books with
YOUR 100% guarantee
http://www.InterviewSell.com contact@InterviewSell.com
"If you really want something in life, you have to work for it.
Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers." -
Homer J. Simpson =============================================