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.
