13 Resume Mistakes That Could Cost You the Job

1. A BLANK OR GENERIC OBJECTIVE: If your objective could be applied to a marketing resume just as readily as an accounting CV, it says nothing and will get you nowhere. An goal is not a mandatory paragraph at the top of the page that is a 5-line exercise in job jargon. It’s a precise and accurate representation of your abilities in relation to who you are and what you desire. It should differ depending on the sort of job you’re looking for.

2. BLAND JOB DETAILS: “Responsibilities included directing the development of four 50-story Hilton Hotels in the Tri-City Metro Area.”Yeah? So what? That says nothing about whether they were completed on time or on budget. It’s unclear whether you elevated yourself to handle all four hotels or if the gentleman in charge of two of them was sacked. Make yourself stand out from the rest of the applicants. How will the employing firm know if you don’t tell them how you would be beneficial to them?

3. WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE MYSTERY COMPANY? Don’t take for granted that your company’s name and mission are well-known. It might be whether it’s a rival or if it’s in the same business and is close by. Provide a phrase or two on the emphasis of your company’s products or services just to be safe.

4. ANOTHER PARAGRAPH, ANOTHER JOB: Do not keep adding to your résumé year after year, job after job. You should have weeded out some of the early material by the time you’re in your 40s. All you need is your degree, not all of your college activities. For your first two tasks, you don’t need all five bullets.

5. REFERENCES: Do not include references on your CV. The right wording is “references accessible upon request.” When they’re asked, you present them individually.This isn’t about following the rules. This is to ensure that your references are not contacted until you and the firm are serious about working together.

6. IT’S NOT A STORY! : Do not, under any circumstances, write your resume in the third person!

7. SKIP THE PERSONAL INFORMATION: You may believe that your weekend baseball coaching or church choir engagement demonstrates that you are a well-rounded and intriguing person, but they are unimportant. Aside from the job interview and your qualifications, the interviewer will inquire about you as a person.

8. DATE OF GRADUATION: Regardless of your age, provide the date of your graduation on your resume.Everyone starts counting the years backwards to find out how old you are, as if you’re hiding something (which you are, aren’t you?). You may be ruled out just for forgetting the date. What else may you be withholding if you’re trying to disguise your age by not disclosing the date?

9. SPELL CHECK, SPELL CHECK, SPELL CHECK: Checking your spelling visually with someone else three times isn’t enough. Also, make sure your punctuation is correct.

PART ONE OF GETTING YOUR RESUME OUT THERE: Don’t waste your time with a resume blaster. Half of the sites they spam aren’t even legitimate.You have no idea how it will turn out on the other side. You have no idea where it’s going or if the landing objectives are connected to employment. It’s awful form, and it’s definitely not the way to land your dream job. It requires concentration, attention, precision, personality, customization, and specificity to find your ideal career. Resume blasting is about the farthest thing from it.

PART TWO OF GETTING YOUR RESUME OUT THERE: If it’s an advertisement, you should have instructions on how to submit it. If it says email, copy it and paste it into the form, along with an attachment. Because of the range of choices accessible to each user, you never know what it will look like on the other end.To be honest, you’re better off not sending anything at all because it usually just vanishes into cyberspace, leaving it up to the recruiting agency — but, unfortunately, that’s not always an option. Because there is often no name provided for a follow-up contact when you email your CV, you are giving up any prospect of future involvement. There’s nothing you can do but wait and wonder. (And HR or an admin department will scan it into an electronic database half of the time.)

PART THREE OF GETTING YOUR RESUME OUT THERE: If you know the firm, phone and inquire about their preferred method of communication: email, fax, or snail mail. A recruiter I know never even looked at his email. He had so many applications forwarded to him cold (so NOT proactive) since he was featured in The Kennedy Guide to Executive Recruiters that he just did a bulk delete every morning.Candidates who were approached for a specific position were asked to send their resumes to him by snail mail. What do you think? I’m guessing that less than 10% of people that submitted their resumes followed up to check if they were received (this isn’t a numbers game).

Ivory paper for the resume visuals. Ink is black. Pages by themselves. There is no plastic slider or metal push down tabs on the 7th grade science report cover.Not on a cover page that says “Introducing Clifton Lewis Montgomery III,” but with your name centered at the top. Without exception. Your CV is not a school book report or an art project; it is a professional document. Until every resume is formatted in this manner, yours will stand out.

Your CV is the marketing piece, and you are the product. To discover your ideal job, you must set yourself apart from the other candidates who will be interviewed.

Your resume should be centered on the changes you’ve made with your prior organizations, as well as the successes you’ve accomplished with — and for — them. It should be detailed, unique, and simple to scan so that it begs a deeper read.This shows the recruiting firm what you can accomplish for them, and it’s all about them, not you.

Of course, this implies that you satisfy the job’s requirements; otherwise, your CV will be irrelevant! Your resume is what gets you an interview. You won’t even get in the door if your resume is badly written, looks sloppy, is difficult to understand, is cryptic in any manner, or requires slogging through to acquire your information (they won’t bother).