Mistakes on resumes usually give a bad first impression to the recruiter and could cost you your next dream job. While grammar mistakes and typos are some of the most common mistakes, the more severe ones would cause the recruiters to reject the candidate before they even finished reading the whole resume. So, here are a few mistakes to avoid.
1. Including irrelevant work experience
It would be hard to justify why a Subway sandwich artist for six months would want to be a banker through a resume. Listing all the part-time work we had would send the wrong message to the recruiter. It shows that the applicant lacks logical thinking skills and failed to segregate important information from trivial ones. So, leave out the irrelevant part-time work we had in the past and only focus on those that could add value to our potential employer
2. Exaggerating your job description
Exaggerating or amplifying your job role using fancy words is a red flag to the Human Resource (HR) managers. As its very easy for the HR managers to cross-check with our previous employer, exaggerating will always lead to bad impressions.
3. Include common (and obvious) skills
Listing Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as our skills will give the impression that we don’t have any other advanced technical skills. Use the valuable space on the resume to highlight more important skills such as programming languages, Google Analytics, and SQL skills.
4. Fancy fonts and designs
Unless you are applying for a designer or other artistic role, it doesn’t help to use fancy designs. HR managers usually prefer a simple-to-read layout to quickly sieve through the pile of resumes. Thus, use a clean and neat template to increase the chance that the resume would be read by the recruiters.
5. Giving the document a bad filename
The standard resume name would be the full name of the applicant. However, some resumes were named as according to the version like “Resume_final”, “Resume_5.2” or worst “Resume2019” (it’s 2021 already). Thus, double-check the file name before sending out your resume to prevent these awkward mistakes.
Keep in mind that the vast amount of resumes received by top employers would force the recruiters to make their decisions rapidly. Avoid these mistakes and always double-check before submitting.
