Archive for March, 2010

5 Common Resume Mistakes

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Creating your resume can be the most frustrating aspect of your job search, but if you build it, they will come. Being without employment is a bit scary, but constant vigilance, determination and focus can quickly turn that around. You should always begin your job search by spending some time with your resume. See what experience and skills you have, as well as what you would like to do with them. This will help you figure out what jobs to apply for, and how to sell yourself.

1) Typos and Grammatical Errors: While it is said that 50% of statistics are made up, it is definitely true that a large majority of personnel will discard a resume due to typographical and grammatical errors. At 90 WPM, you are very likely to make a typo, so be sure to re-read your resume many times, otherwise they may be thinking, “no wonder they type so fast – look at all these errors.”

Additionally, if one of your skills is listed as “Close attention to detial,” the person reading your resume will laugh at you, will show it to other people in the office, and then promptly dispose of your resume. Mean what you say. Prove that you can pay close attention to the details by showing that nothing on your resume has been overlooked. One grammatical error or typo might get overlooked, or go unnoticed, but two will surely cost your the job.

2) Too Generic: There is nothing worse than printing fifty duplicate resumes and dropping them off at various companies. Regardless of where you are applying, the positions, procedures and personalities of each company will be different, so you should mold your resume to fit them. There are simple ways to do this without fabricating any personal information.

Say you were a bartender at a restaurant and you were responsible for learning a wide variety of new drinks in a short period of time, marketing your bar and the nights you work to current and potential customers, keeping track of inventory, locking up and setting the alarm, and dealing with the money for the restaurant on a daily basis.  You can market that for a plethora of different positions. You have: customer service experience, evidence of being a fast learner, sales and marketing potential, organizational skills, managerial responsibilities and tasks, as well as reliability. It is amazing to realize what you can do with a simple bartending position.

3) Unfocused: A resume needs to have a point. It does not need to have a punch line or a moral, but rather, a focused goal. If you have had a lot of variety in past work experiences or are trying to move away from one expertise to another, you need to focus your attention on your versatility. Show that you are good at whatever you do, without giving away too much about the details of your various tasks. If you are applying for a common position that generally looks for a good deal of experience, such as at a restaurant, you can omit everything that is not restaurant work-related, but you should include all relevant experience. And finally, if you are applying to a job in a specialized field, you want to showcase your knowledge of the tasks at hand, as well as your current skill set and its relevance to the position. Make sure you seem quick to learn and qualified, without appearing too experienced, or overqualified.

4) Too Long/ Too Short: A standard resume should be one page in length. If you are applying for a position that requires a portfolio, they will tell you to provide one, but you should still have a one-page summary of your skills and accomplishments. Otherwise, assume that you should supply a one-page resume and a separate page for references. If you have a lot of information, by organizing it appropriately and taking advantage of bold font, italics, and underlining, you can avoid making it look smashed together. If you do not have a lot of experience, you should elaborate on your individual positions and tasks and show how they make you a perfect candidate for the job.

Entry-level positions often do not bother checking your references, so if you include extensive information about them on your resume, you are merely wasting space. You can simply note one or two references from one of your most recent positions just to show that you did actually work there, and you are not afraid that they will be contacted. For many higher up positions, your references are one of the most important factors, and should be treated as such by being on a separate sheet, as a professional list of references and contact information.

5) Irrelevant or Negative Information: It is great that your son is a Harvard Law student, your mother is an Irish immigrant, and you train your dog on the weekends. Unless you are applying for a position that finds any of that information relevant, exclude it entirely. Most decisions to interview or discard are made in less than a minute; do not waste their time with anything that will not sell you as a perfect candidate.

Under no circumstances should you have any negative information on your resume. While there are plenty of cynical people who would enjoy some dark humor, keep it lighthearted and positive. Make your tasks seem interesting and fun, and never have anything that might allude to poor management, a terrible boss, or negative internal relationships.

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The Do’s and Don’ts of Resume Writing

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

Developing your resume is a tedious part of the job search and is also one of the most important steps of the process.  Below is a list of do’s and don’ts to help you along the way.  Stick close to these guidelines and you can start searching for the job of your dreams.

  • DO use bullets to establish your points and organize your experiences. This makes it a thousand times easier for employers to glance over your skills, experiences, and qualifications.
  • DON’T list everything with bullet points. You want the important information to stick out, not blend in with the rest of the details. Use bullets, but use them sparingly.
  • DO save your file as your name and resume if you are sending it via email. This will make it much easier to access, and avoid confusion when interview time comes around.
  • DON’T use whatever generic or default name is provided, and avoid using dates or version numbers. Employers do not need to know how many different versions of your resume you have, or how often you update it.
  • DO include all available contact information such as phone number, email address, and even home address to ensure that you can be found if they want to check references or set up an interview.
  • DON’T include personal email addresses that are not professional, such as “luvskittens@hotmail” or “dottiethehottie@yahoo.” If it is the only email address you have, you should definitely open a new account.
  • DO use high quality paper of a relatively neutral color. Something more substantial will stand out in a stack of resumes.
  • DON’T use bright colors, scented paper or pens, or standard white copy paper (if you can avoid it). These “artistic” additions are distracting and unprofessional.
  • DO use font enhancements such as bold, italics, and underline. This will make your resume look more interesting, and help the important parts stand out.
  • DON’T go overboard with these enhancements. Much like the bullet points, you should use them to drive a point home, but use them sparingly. Additionally, do not change your font style throughout the paper, and never use varying colors.
  • DO highlight your achievements and accomplishments. Show how far you advanced in various positions, and what you did.
  • DON’T focus too much on the duties you performed. Highlighting individual tasks is a waste of time since employers rarely have time to read through them. It just takes away from the more important points.
  • DO use fragmented sentences. You may not realize this, but fragments actually help to enhance a point. When employers are scanning a resume, they rarely spend more than a minute or two on it, so shorter sentences and phrases are helpful.
  • DON’T use personal pronouns. Omitting “I” and “my” will add to the fragmented sentences, but will also make your resume easier to read. Your resume is obviously about you; so don’t bother with first person pronouns.
  • DO make your resume job specific. Include information that is relevant to the job for which you are applying, and make it show that you are the missing puzzle piece to their organization.
  • DON’T submit the same generic resume to many different job openings. Though you may be applying for similar jobs, do not use the same exact resume. When employers read it they will know it is generic, and that can greatly affect your chances.

The most important thing to remember is to remain honest. It is okay to be a little bit more confident in your skills than you normally are, but only include honest information. Good luck!

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Posted in Tips, Writing | 3 Comments »