Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
In this stagnant economy, every line of your resume – from your name down to the last line – needs to promote and sell your candidacy. Each job has hundreds, perhaps thousands, of equally-qualified candidates. Many of these applicants have no idea of the blunders they’ve made on their resumes. The smart job seeker knows what to avoid which invites an interview.
Let’s go through our “don’t-let-this-happen-to-you” list:
- Using a suffix after a family name. If you’re a Jr. or a Sr. leave it off. It makes you sound too young or too old. Have a family nickname? Keep it in the family. A resume should have your given name only.
- Funky email addresses: HateMondays@email.com may sound cool to your friends. To an employer it’s unprofessional.
- The What-I-Want Objective: A resume is not the time to give an employer your wish list. Use a summary of your skills, instead, to tell them what you can offer.
- Generic Phrasing: Adept professional, seasoned manager, dynamic candidate. These phrases take up valuable space unless you support them with a quantified accomplishment.
- Accomplishments That Aren’t: Without the results, they’re daily duties and lose their impact. Always include dollar figures, percentages, and time periods. For example: Grew sales 38% within six months, representing an increase of $100,000 in revenue, through targeted cold calling.
- Buried Skills: The end of a resume is not the place for important certifications, licensure, or multilingual capabilities. Put them in the opening summary where they won’t be overlooked.
- Listing Hobbies or Interests: If it’s not pertinent to your career goal, leave it off. White water rafting may make you a liability to the employer’s health care plan.
- Haphazard Organization: List your most important skills first, followed by the next most important, and so on. Education doesn’t always go at the top or at the bottom of the resume. It and the other sections go where they will most impress.
- Failure to Target: Consider an employer’s needs when writing your resume. A one-size-fits-all model will likely fail.
- Use of first person and slang: Resumes are business documents written in the third person. Keep yours conservative and businesslike.
Ten easy reminders to get you started.
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Category: Cover Letter, Curriculum Vitae (CV), Entry Level, Executive, Job Interview, Job Search, Professional, Resume, Tips | Tags: Tags: Job Search, mistakes to avoid, resume blunders, resumes,
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
It is astonishing how many recruiters say they receive resumes and cover letters filled with spelling errors. A spelling slip-up, even a minor one, says more about you than the most articulate choice of words. For instance, is it “too” or “to”? Did you write “it’s” or “its”? Just those two words alone count for a lot of mistakes.
Get as many people to proof and edit your resume and cover letter as possible. You can never have too many eyes. The corporate content manager of a large instrument company says she sees a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. Once she sees a mistake she won’t read any further. She is not alone. When asked about the worst resumes and cover letters they have ever received, those that read them can come up with some hilarious shockers. How about the person applying to work at ExxonMobil? Nice resume, great cover letter, but he spelled the company’s name Exxon Mobile. There goes that job prospect.
While such big blunders are not that common, many people do make simple mistakes that could be easily avoided.
The top four common mistakes are:
Spelling and grammar are at the top of the list, probably because people rely too much on spell check. Spell check is a useful tool, but you also need several sets of eyeballs to catch everything. Spell check doesn’t check the context and use of words—your or you’re, four or for?
Repeating verbatim what’s in your resume on your cover letter
Forgetting to replace a company name when cutting and pasting parts of a letter
Carelessness—”I’d like to work for your company” (and the organization is a non-profit or government agency) or “I read your ad in the Philadelphia Inquirer” and it was run in another publication.
To make your way through the maze of errors that inevitably pop up, follow these simple steps:
Find people who will critically read each resume and cover letter you write for the content as well as the details. You might not notice that a period is missing from a sentence or an indentation that should be there isn’t. A reader hunting for errors will find them.
Read your resume and cover letter backwards from the bottom up, word by word. It sounds silly, but doing so allows you to see errors you would probably gloss over reading it from the top down.
Read the resume and cover letter aloud to find words that don’t make sense or aren’t meaningful.
If you send a resume or cover letter to several companies, highlight each specific change so you make sure not to send Company A’s letter to Company B.
Finally, if you send a resume and cover letter via e-mail, stick it in the draft folder for an hour and then read it again before actually sending it.
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
by Darlene Zambruski, ResumeEdge.com Managing Editor, CPRW, SME
Creating a succinct and attractive resume that contains well-prioritized data is one of the major challenges facing candidates today. Not only will an applicant’s resume be competing against hundreds of others, it must clearly portray the candidate in the most favorable light and as the most appropriate choice for the opening. In order to do this, several resume pitfalls must be avoided:
1. Poor or Inappropriate Formatting: The first impression a resume makes on an admissions director or hiring manager is generally the most lasting. Large blocks of uninterrupted text, small margins, text that is very small, or an abundance of bolding, italics, and “designer” fonts make documents difficult to read. Only one font (preferably Times New Roman or Arial) should be employed and never in a point size lower than 11. Bolding should be left to the header information (name, address, phone number, email) and subheadings within the document (Profile, Work History, Education). A candidate’s industry or field will determine whether the resume format will be conservative (i.e. Physicians, Teachers, CPAs, Individuals Seeking Admission to Graduate Schools, etc.) or more stylish (i.e. Marketing Professionals, Artists, Performers, etc.).
2. Lack of Focus: An effective resume should indicate to the reader within seven seconds, or less, the candidate’s targeted position and qualifications that match the opening. It’s not enough to list schooling, work history, and activities. Admissions directors and hiring managers will not thoroughly read a resume to cull needed information – candidates must provide this data quickly and effectively. Qualifications Summaries should include information as to what is sought (a position or entrance into a university program) and the candidate’s qualifications that are related to this. Employment History, Accomplishments, and Education should build upon what is provided in the Qualifications Summary.
3. Use of Self-serving Objective Statements: In today’s economy hiring managers are not interested in what a candidate wants (i.e. Seeking a position that will fully utilize my college education and provide for sufficient advancement within the industry). Rather, they seek candidates that clearly state what they can do for the targeted company in terms of cutting costs, increasing profits, and enhancing productivity. Hiring manager’s take note of applicants who place the company’s needs above their own.
4. Poor Data Prioritization: A resume should reveal the candidate’s professional & academic background as it applies to the targeted position or program being sought, and in reverse-chronological order (the last job worked or school attended is listed first within that section). If Education is an important qualification it should be presented before Work History, not dead last on the document. If real-world experience is valued, then it should come before Education. If special skills, such as IT, are at a premium, they should be showcased immediately after the opening summary, not left to the end of a two-page resume.
5. Failure to Showcase and Quantify Accomplishments: Hiring managers and admissions directors will not read every line of a resume to determine what a candidate has to offer, especially if it’s buried within dense blocks of text. Applicants must provide special sections indicating professional or academic achievements and these must be quantified. It’s not enough to write: Increased productivity within the division. Hiring managers and admissions directors will find this self-serving. A better way to present the data is to write: Increased productivity 58% within three-months of hire by retraining staff on latest accounting software. Providing percentages/dollar figures and time frames strengthen achievements.
6. Including Non-relevant Data: Hobbies and interests unless directly related to the current job search should never be included – such activities do not enhance candidacy. Additionally, birth dates, religious affiliations, race, social security numbers, and marital data should never be included.
7. Inappropriate Length: There is no one correct page length for a resume. The document is as long as it has to be in order to provide a clear and effective picture of the candidate. Professionals with many years of experience will most likely have two pages. To cram this data into one page or exclude important information in order to reach an arbitrary length will only dilute candidacy. The key is to provide only that data which is relevant to the current career goal. When this rule if followed, appropriate page length is always reached.
8. Personalizing the Document and using Casual Language: Modern resumes are business documents and should never be personalized with use of “I’ “my” “we” or other personal pronouns. Additionally, the tone of the resume should always remain professional and businesslike – slang is always excluded.
9. Redundancy of Data: Once information has been provided in a resume, whether it’s in the Qualifications Summary, Career Accomplishments section, or Professional Experience section, it is not repeated elsewhere. Hiring managers and admissions directors soon tire of redundancy and feel the candidate is padding the resume to reach a certain page length.
10. Spelling or Grammatical Errors and Incorrect Verb Tense: Once a spelling or grammatical error is detected by an admissions director or hiring manager, they will stop reading the resume. Their trust in that person’s abilities is forever lost. This is also true when dates of employment or education are obviously incorrect (i.e. a recent college graduate listing the date of graduation as 1979 instead of 1999), or when verb tense does not match dates of employment (i.e. current jobs have duties listed in present tense; previous jobs have duties listed in past tense).
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
by Darlene Zambruski, ResumeEdge.com Managing Editor, CPRW, SME
Generally speaking, CVs or Curriculum Vitaes, are only used in the United States when the candidate is:
1. Seeking an academic position or a fellowship
2. Has been published frequently within their career field
3. The company or institution to which the CV is being submitted requests a longer, more
detailed version of the candidate’s history
Overseas, however, the situation is far different. Although some countries will accept resumes, most still want CVs. If you are applying to another country for a position it’s important that you note how candidate data differs in that country and in this one. Overseas employers may ask for a listing of:
1. Personal information such as date of birth, marital status, nationality, religion,
and number of children.
2. Linguistic and computer capabilities (this is nearly standard in other countries)
Additionally, presentation of data may vary from country to country (some prefer Education to be listed first, while others want Professional Experience or Work History)
General Rules for Converting a Resume to a CV
Font Type & Format
When creating a CV from a resume, it’s important to note that CVs tend to be more formal. Whereas a stylish format and “designer” font can be used in resume creation, it’s best to err on the conservative side with a CV.
Choose the Times New Roman font and a standard template that separates data under appropriate subheadings – i.e. Career Accomplishments, Licensing, Professional Experience, Publications, etc. CVs are generally so lengthy, they should be easy to navigate.
Data Inclusion
Because most resumes are two-pages or less, information such as publications, extensive training, and career history that spans decades is rarely included.
In a CV, however, all publications should be listed, as well as all relevant training. Full work history should also be provided even if it encompasses twenty years or more.
