10 common mistakes when writing a resume

Today, StudyQA presents a piece that looks at common resume mistakes. Learn how to make a good resume for college or a job. After all, it doesn't t make sense to send an employer a resume if it's not good enough. A recruiter probably gets dozens or even hundreds of resumes every day. So if he lingers on yours for more than 10 seconds, you're a lucky guy.

This is a list of 10 big mistakes you should avoid to keep your resume from going in the trash.

1. Response to a vacancy for which you do not qualify

2. Undue information in resumes

3. Keeping own merits

4. Grammatical errors and typos

5. Spaces in resumes;Résumés

6. Lies or information that misleads the recruiter

7. Long, "unclear" résumés

8. Lazy formatting

9. Nonsensical intro

10. Boring résumés

1. Resume mistake: Responding to a job for which you're not

When you see a tempting job ad, you might think, "Sounds good! It's worth a try."

But if you don't have the skills or experience, you're probably wasting your time. Carefully read the job description and any available information about the job, and then ask yourself, "Yes, I like the job description, but am I really the right person for the job? If you're still ready to say yes, go ahead and click "Review" and wait. If you're not sure you can do it, don't do it. You'll save time and nerve cells.

2. Too much information on your resume is wrong

Proud to be a member of the Hells Angels? Or that you voted for the Greens in the last election? By being six feet tall? That you're a Buddhist? That's great, but there's no place on your résumé for information that's irrelevant to your future responsibilities. Not mentioning your own merits

Remember, your resume doesn t have much time to impress the recruiter. He'll look at your resume and think, "Should I ask this person for an interview? Would he be useful to the company?"

And therefore, when writing your resume, focus on describing your strengths and make them as obvious as possible. That doesn't mean capitalizing all your strengths, but make sure they're obvious, understandable, and most importantly, compelling.

4. Grammatical mistakes and typos in your resume

This point about grammatical mistakes and typos in your resume should be obvious to everyone. But practice shows that this is not always the case. In one day on the job a recruiter sees a lot of mistakes and typos.

Spelling can always be checked. Don't forget that!

5. Gaps in resumes are unacceptable

The presence on resumes of long periods without work that you haven't bothered to explain is unacceptable. They make the recruiter distrustful. At best, they'll wonder for a moment what you were doing during that mysterious time in your life, carefully folding your resume into a paper airplane to throw it in the trash. Lies or information that misleads the recruiter

Of course, you ve got to put yourself in the best possible light on your resume. Often you have to add a little "creative flair" to it. But don't go too far.

Recruiters are not stupid. They'll see if your resume doesn't add up. So, for example, they will easily notice if you embellish:

• Your qualifications

• The salary

• The position

• Their achievements

Employers usually conduct a thorough background check on their potential employees. The severity of that background check can range from a basic internet search to paying a professional. So if you try to "embellish the truth" just a little bit, you can easily go down the drain.

7. Long, "inarticulate" resumes

The resume should be short and clingy. It should be no longer than 2 A4 pages.

If your resume is too long, this is a typical resume mistake. It also means you're jumping from job to job, which is unacceptable, or you can't express yourself succinctly and clearly on paper, which is unacceptable. For older people, meeting the two-page limit can be quite problematic. How do you describe a job you had 35 years ago? The solution is simple. Don't write about it at all. Instead, focus on your recent experiences and recent accomplishments. If you need to reference your past work, you can list them separately and include them in your cover letter. The same goes for qualifications. If you took any courses a hundred years ago and you're not sure if that knowledge is still in your head, you might want to consider whether or not to mention it. So, for example, if you learned French at university in 1986, but didn't lose your conversational skills thanks to a trip to France, then it's definitely worth mentioning. But if you applied for a web design job because you studied HTML in 1998, don't be surprised if the recruiter never called you...

8. Sloppy formatting

In our day, resumes are first reviewed on the computer before being printed. If they print it out at all... So a resume should be in a format that is easy to read on the screen. Fonts preferred are Arial and Times New Roman 10 or 12. Don't overdo the italics, and avoid bright colors, crazy backgrounds, and God forbid there should be flowers in the margins. These rules apply if you're emailing your résumé as an attachment (be sure to open it, by the way). If you send your resume via a web form, the formatting will probably be lost anyway. So it's a good idea to make sure your resume looks normal beforehand without any "gimmicks" like highlighting, subheading, and list marking.

9. Meaningless intro

Your resume has a paragraph like:

"An energetic, enthusiastic, marketable, tech-savvy, efficient and results-driven manager with a broad background in management is looking for fun and challenging opportunities to bring your talents to life and blah-blah-blah..."? Boring-co-ta. Your resume should hit the bull's-eye! It should make the recruiter leap in their chair, choke on their coffee, and impatiently reach for their phone to offer you a job! Or, to put it simply, your résumé should make him invite you for an interview. An opening paragraph where you "muddy the waters" obviously won't have that effect. Get rid of it! Instead, think of a brief, simple, and tenacious title that describes you. For example, "Senior Librarian with 10 years' experience managing online resources in the health care sector" sounds not an example better. It's not perfect, of course, but it's still better than it was. Journalists often use this trick. They write a headline that hints at the content of the article, but gives you just enough information to encourage you to read on. This is also how a resume title should work.

10. Boring resume

We re back to the beginning. There's a lot of responsibility on your resume. You probably won't hold it long unless you glue it on first (a risky move that probably won't work). To increase your chances of getting an employer interested in your resume, make sure it looks appropriate. Make sure it's not too long, easy to read, and properly formatted. If you do all this work, you have a chance. The recruiter will sit back, have another sip of coffee, and start looking over your resume, probably not really looking at it. So don't miss the moment!

Creating a resume that "doesn't scare off" the recruiter is just the first step. It's nice, of course, but if the information on your resume sounds unconvincing, you've wasted your time again. Your resume is not meant to sell you. It should make you seem like an interesting candidate. It should convey the impression that you're a good fit for the organization and that you'll make a unique contribution. If the recruiter looks at your resume and thinks, "So what?"

You've made a big mistake.