Top 10 Mistakes You Can Make on Your Resume

Dream jobs can’t be reached without proper resumes!  

By: Shelly Verma, Contributing Writer

A resume is the document that decides whether you’re a potential candidate for the job. The concerned authority will take a few seconds to go through your resume and give you a mental rating. This makes your resume a very important document and you need to be very careful while preparing it. With the web at everyone’s disposal, do not be surprised if your potential employer decides to run a background check on you online.

How do you organize the contents of your resume? Does your resume include a personal profile filled with adjectives? Do you give a detailed job description of your work experience? What do you provide in your resume for reference? How well does your resume speak for your performance? These questions are vital to your resume so that it creates the right impression upon the reader’s mind.

Here are 10 mistakes you could make while preparing your resume:

1) Using out-dated patterns to write your resume: The format of writing a resume has had significant changes over the last few years. Make sure you’re using the current style to write your resume. What’s important is that your resume is clear and contains information relevant to the job and that describes your skills and potential accurately.

2) Inaccuracies in grammar and sentence structure:  Grammatical errors and typos must not become a common feature in your resume. Get at least two people to proofread your resume before forwarding it to the company. Take care of uniformity as you make statements. For example, there may be a period after some bullet points and it may be missing in others. Too many mistakes may make the reader wonder how you would handle other communication if you can’t handle one resume.

3) Announcing an objective statement: If you’re making a strong objective and placing it in the first part of your resume, you’re making the biggest mistake. An objective is a statement that describes what you want. For example, “Looking for a job where I can apply my skills and have the potential for growth.” Managers who read your resume are more interested in what the company wants. Your resume must speak more about your achievements rather than your ambitions.

4) Using too many subjective descriptions: Your resume must substantiate the claims that are made within. Therefore, you must be careful about using too many descriptive words for yourself. For example, words such as “skilled”, “energetic”, “enthused”, “dedicated”, etc. may sound like a highly positive self-assessment. It would be better to describe your achievements for the perusal of your potential employers.

5) Mentioning all jobs that you may have taken up: Your resume is intended to be a strong statement that puts you in the most competitive category. This means you need to present compelling details and facts relevant to the job. Listing every job that that you may have had or jobs that you may have had years ago may sometimes work against you.

6) Listing job duties, not achievements: Job descriptions are not needed. Every manager knows the nature of the job. You need to mention how well you can get that job done compared to others. Your resume must present facts and figures about strategies you decided, your problem solving methods, the success stories that bring profits or increase sales, etc. For example, mentioning how you managed to raise sales figures by 110% in a period of three years would be more useful information for the reader.

7)  Not using action words: Including words such as “assigned the task of…”, “responsible for” or “duties included”. These words don’t describe your performance. Try replacing such words with phrases such as “accomplished” “resolved problems related to” or “successfully conducted or organized’. These are more impactful and are the keywords managers would be looking for.

8) Not using keywords related to the job: Most resumes today are scanned for keywords to make the process of shortlisting candidates quicker. Not making use of such keywords would put your resume lower in the stack. Make sure you use relevant keywords and phrases. A list of these is easily available on the Internet.

9) Including inappropriate information in your resume: Information about your spouse, your children or your marital status has no place in this document. The company is more concerned with your skills and your usefulness to organization and its growth. Avoid including any unnecessary information that may make the resume uninteresting. Most people tend to place such information in the first quarter of the resume. The first part of your resume is most important and must contain relevant information only.

10) Sending your resume without a cover letter: A cover letter is an introductory letter that describes your specific skills and work experience, which is further qualified in your resume.  It creates the first impression on the reader’s mind and it is therefore important to send a cover letter along with your resume to grab the attention of the reader by presenting your case as a compelling choice for the organization.

Other mistakes you could make would be in not mentioning contact numbers or names visibly, not updating the same, using the same resume for all job applications, not sending your resume in compatible documents so that they can be retrieved on the computer, or using too many pictures or graphics so that they become a distraction.

Employers are looking for genuine people who can apply their skills and help the organization grow. From the hundreds of applicants, you want your resume to stand out and qualify as the best contender for the said post. Make sure you create the most attractive, clear, and strong resume with authentic information about your qualification and potential to make that job yours.

Shelly Verma is an avid small business writer touching on topics from insurance, health, higher education, career improvement, self-help to home improvement.

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