Having a great resume is key to being successful in your job search. Your resume is typically the first impression an employer has of you, so it’s important that it properly represents you. Recruiters often receive hundreds of resumes for each open position. To speed along their process, they’ll often throw away a resume as soon as they note certain mistakes. We don’t want you to fall into that trap! To help, we’ve listed five resume mistakes you need to avoid that job hunters often make.
1. Spelling and Grammar Mistakes
The most frequent resume mistakes are errors in spelling and grammar. Common resume mistakes like this are the easiest way to get your resume rejected because employers are likely to assume you are careless or sloppy in your work.
Make sure to edit your resume several times before submitting it. It also helps to have someone else read it over — a new set of eyes is more likely to pick up on any small resume errors. Or, there are a plethora of free, online grammar and spell-check sites you can run your resume through before submitting it. Grammarly and Scribbr are two popular options.
2. Length
Submitting a resume that is too long or too short is one of the five common resume mistakes you need to avoid. While it’s important that your resume is not excessively long, you should not exclude relevant work experience just to fit everything on one page. You don’t want a potential employer to discount you because you left off relevant experience.
At the same time, you don’t need to include every position you’ve had since the beginning of your career. Some of your past jobs might not be relevant to the current position you are applying for. Feel free to leave off the coffee bar you worked at through grad school if you have more relevant experience to include.
However, having too short of a resume is also a common resume mistake. If you are a recent college grad or just out of high school and have only worked at one or two positions, try to expand upon your responsibilities to lengthen your work history. Also, you can include extracurricular activities you participated in if the experience you gained seems relevant to your career.
When expanding on specific positions, include quantitative details when describing your responsibilities. For example, if you worked as a sales representative, be sure to mention numbers such as your sales close rate, average deal, and number of sales per month.
3. Too Much Personal Information
Getting too personal is another one of the five common resume mistakes you need to avoid. Employers are going to hire you based on your work experience, not on your favorite hobbies. You can have a section for “Skills and Interests” on your resume, but you should avoid listing more than one or two interests unrelated to the job. It’s better to allow your interests to come up naturally. In a job interview, if your interviewer mentions their love of volleyball, then that would be an appropriate time to mention you share the same interest.
It’s not necessary to mention your marital status or children on your resume — these are also common resume mistakes. Again, a potential employer is only interested in your professional background.
Don’t include your picture on your resume. At this stage of the application process, it is better to allow the recruiter to judge you solely based on your qualifications and work history — not your appearance. The exception is if you are applying for an acting or modeling role.
4. Too Busy
You want your resume to be easy for the recruiter to read, allowing them to quickly note how qualified you are for their position. Creating a resume that is too busy is an often overlooked one of the top five common resume mistakes you need to avoid.
For example, some people choose to use more than two fonts. Instead, keep it simple, so that an employer’s eye can easily follow your work history down the page. There is no need to go crazy with bold and italicized fonts in different colors.
Avoid using borders and underlines to separate sections on your resume. As long as you have everything labeled appropriately, an employer will be able to understand it.
5. Missing Critical Information
Don’t make the common resume mistake of forgetting to include pertinent contact information. Make sure the header of your resume includes your full name, phone number and email address. You can also include a link to your LinkedIn profile or your address. If an employer doesn’t have your contact information, they won’t be able to reach you to set up an interview or offer you a job.
Always list the month and year you started and finished each position on your resume. Job seekers avoid adding dates to their work history for various reasons, but this is a huge common resume mistake to avoid! Omitting dates makes employers feel that you are hiding something.
List the appropriate job title for each of your positions. New employers will most likely conduct employment verifications on your work history and reference checks, so it’s important you have all the correct information. If there is a discrepancy with your job title or dates of employment, your new employer will be suspicious.
Lastly, one of the biggest of the five resume mistakes you need to avoid is leaving off software or programs that you’ve used. Be sure to list these, especially since an employer may be screening resumes electronically, and you don’t want to be overlooked because of what you left out.
Find Your Dream Job
Keep these five easily avoidable common resume mistakes on hand next time you update your resume and you’ll be sure to land a great job in no time! If you’ve been struggling with the job search for some time, consider working with a staffing agency for a qualified partner in seeking your dream job.
