Before going through common resume mistakes, let us understand why a resume is so important.
Hiring managers look at your resumes before they see you in person. Which means your resume helps you land an interview, so the resume is an appointed agent, which is why, it needs to be perfect and flawless.
You want to make sure it’s error-free. The problem here is a lot of common mistakes that even you are prone to make that can cost you the job you are so longing for.
Confidentiality
Don’t share confidential information of ex-employers e.g. internal project names, business strategy or plans not made public until now. This makes recruiters question your credibility and you’re out of the game.
Email Address
HR consulting services data reveals 76% of recruiters ignore resumes if you have an unprofessional email address. Make sure to use a professional email address on your resume. Also, @hotmail.com is not recommended for job searching.
Always maintain an email ID dedicated to only job search thus you won’t miss any updates otherwise lost in tons of subscription emails.
Mailing Address
The complete address is part of your security concerns. The only contact information you should include is your phone number and email address. City and nationality can do most of the work.
Photos
Photo isn’t necessary and considered unprofessional. Remove any sort of graphics or even professional photo unless part of the design industry e.g. Fashion designer, graphic designer, architecture, etc. At most, you can include a LinkedIn URL where recruiters can find your professional photo if they wish to see.
Hobbies
You don’t need to share leisure pursuit on your resume, even if you probably have a lot of marvellous hobbies. Besides hobbies can be tricky, to get it right in your resume. It will give rise to cold questions which have nothing to do with the job you will be doing.
Irrelevant Jobs
If you worked at a restaurant when you were in college, in most cases you can take this off your resume. Focus more on quality than quantity and don’t try to fill in the year gaps. Be honest. Only relevant experience gets to add up to fetch you that job.
To customize resume as per job requirement, is time-consuming process. To create a draft, this contains all the information. This drafts information can be edited as per the job you’re applying.
False Information or Exaggerations
A huge 75% of HR consultants catch lie on a resume. Deviations between your resume and your interview could cost you a job. It’s not unheard of to exaggerate a bit on a resume. You might get selected but you will have to prove your skills at your job.
Instead of bluffing experience, focus on things by unpaid and volunteer work you have done before to show yourself as a strong candidate for the job applying.
Typos and Grammatical Error
Grammatical mistakes or typos are big turn-downs. After all this technological help available, whopping 77% of hiring managers instantly disqualify resumes because of this.
Make someone read your resume before applying. You can print out and red mark. Text-to-audio listening can help a lot e.g. Speechify app is great for iPhone users.
Unprofessional Fonts and Colours
When in doubt choose black, greys no more than dull and dark blues for fonts or colours on your resume.
Bonus tip: To look more professional, when going for an interview make sure to bring your resume in a portfolio or crisp black file.
Distracting layout
On an average, six seconds are spent looking at a resume.
If they’re distracted by your template or can’t find what they’re looking for easily, about 22% of recruiters say this makes your resume trash worthy. Besides basic MS Word template is a big NO as your resume gets lost in tonnes of applications.
Age revealing and marital status
The employer is only concerned whether you can do the job or not. Marital status has no impact on your abilities to function well in your role, so does the age.
Omit dates of education, and mention years of jobs unless new in the market. Qualification of certain types too can reveal age, like O levels in the UK, were swapped by GCSEs in the 1980s. Avoid mentioning out-dated courses and experience before 2005.
If a soon-to-be employer wants to know the age of an applicant and the information is not superficial, they may spend further time looking through and engaging with the resume examining for hints which is engaging.
Keywords and Industry jargons
Adding industrial jargons is suitable but also a plus with specific profile HR is looking for. It also proves your authenticity and helps match your profile to the job description. This shows you are fit for this role and makes you stand out in tons of unrelated job applicants.
Now, that your resume is perfect, all you have to do is start applying for new job opportunities posted by BDS Recruitment, which is one of the Top Recruitment Agencies in UK. Good Luck!
Leave Your Comments