Five More Resume Blunders That Will Land You in The Trash
March 4, 2010 
27 Comments
At ResumeBear we take pride in the quality of our sources and rely on their experience and expert guidance to help job seekers get ahead. Our goal is to help keep America working to their fullest potential. We all know the consequences of presenting a poorly crafted resume, especially loosing the ability to create the vital positive first impression to help you stand out from your competition.
Yahoo Finance writer Erin Joyce recently wrote an article singling out ten resume blunders that will crush your chances of consideration before you even had a chance when you’re searching for a job.
Many of these suggestions we’ve brought up here before; and some might seem like frivolously avoidable blunders, but all are equally important to stay away from when designing a professional resume. Joyce offers insights into authoring your resume, explaining the types of errors which could break your chances of being considered for prime available positions. We recently shared 5 of those suggestions with you in our post, “Five Worst Resume Mistakes”, and now we’d like to share the rest of them with you today.
The Five more Resume Blunders that bring your job search to a screeching halt are:
TMI means Too Much Information. If your resume gets personal, tone it down;
Your resume is not a journal entry, and sharing personal experiences not related to your job history is highly discouraged. Joyce recommends:
‘“Resumes should demonstrate how professional you are — that means the anecdote about the time you met Britney Spears is not appropriate. That being said, let your personality come through in your resume by including volunteer experience or a (very) short section about your interests.”
Your resume contains Spelling or Grammatical Errors;
This too seems like an obvious error to avoid, but you’d be surprised how many people ignore proof reading and hastily submit subpar resumes riddled with spelling and grammar errors when applying for jobs. Having obvious errors in your resume demonstrates disrespect, and will land you immediately disqualified.
“We all know to avoid this one. It makes you look sloppy and negates the part of your resume that proudly describes you as “detail-oriented.” The best thing you can do for a resume is send it to a professional resume service or a professional editor. If you are a student, your career center likely offers free resume counseling or at least free information to help you fine tune your CV before sending it out. At the very least, have a friend look it over and check for basic language errors — spell check just doesn’t cut it”, says Joyce.
Your resume lists a Specific Objective;
One common error many job seekers continually make is deciding to include an Objective section in their resume. Joyce elaborates;
“For the most part, objectives sound insincere and, worse, can limit your options. Let your cover letter do the talking when it comes to why you want that particular job. And remember, each cover letter and resume should be individually tailored to a specific job posting — not just a specific field. Taking an interest in the specifics of the job makes you look professional and focused and not like you are mass-emailing anyone who might hire you. Desperation is no more attractive to an employer than it is to a date.”
Your resume lists an Unprofessional Email Address;
You’ve heard this one over and over, but it still stands; using a personalized email address with an unprofessional name or phrase can be an automatic disqualifier for many hopeful, unsuspecting applicants.
“In a world where email is free, and most of us have multiple addresses, make the effort to have a professional email address. Keep it simple — using your name is best. Just make sure you leave the sparklebaby@hellokitty.com for personal use. One more tip? Don’t use your current work email unless you are self-employed.”, explains Joyce.
Your Resume is covered in Glitter – Literally;
Professional recruiters have seen everything. From resume’s coated with perfume to applicants including glittery photographs with their submissions, adding any additional flare could be perceived as flashy and obnoxious by the hiring manager. Joyce explains;
”In an effort to make your resume stand out, you may find that it gets thrown out. Less extreme attempts such as including image files or using non-traditional symbols or fonts should also be avoided. While it may be a nice break for a recruiter reading through hundreds of Times New Roman “documents, you run the risk of the fonts or images not loading properly. And you can bet that busy recruiter isn’t going to contact you for a simplified copy.”
The end result?
In the end, your resume needs to create a professional and inviting first impression that makes the hiring manager evaluating candidates want to learn more about YOU above all the others names on paper going through the inbox. Job hunting can be a difficult process for many, and being armed with a well written resume will help boost not only your chances of getting that first interview, but also will greatly increase your confidence and determination to find – and keep– the job of your dreams. Happy Hunting!
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After working for a few years in a law firm, I was amazed at the amount of professional people who submitted resumes with typos. It is such an avoidable mistake to make and yet people still make it. I agree with the tip that they need to have someone else look over the resume first. A fresh set of eyes can find the errors that a nervous applicant may miss.
As someone who is going to be re-entering the job hunt soon, I found these tips to be a helpful reminder. Especially the tip about dealing with the “Objective” section of the resume. Some of these tips were obvious, but I hadn’t really heard before about removing the objective.
I am a little surprised to read about the Objective removal tip but am very glad to find it here first. Times must be a-changing and that means the traditional resume format is changing too. It seems to me not even a decade ago job resume workshops were all touting the importance of a concise and powerfully written Objective. It makes sense to me though. With the removal of the Objective there will be slightly more room to fill in specific skill demonstrating sections such as work-related descriptions and educational achievements.
Objective is the most difficult part of the resume process. Thank you for the tips-every tip helps in a small job market.
I love the way it looks. Nice color tones and easy to understand.
As someone who has been laid off after many years in the work force updating my resume was top priority. Your tips are good and as noted above have been mentioned many times but like many things need constant reminder for those seeking work for the first time or the tenth time. Keep up the good work.
Very useful site for all job seekers(freshers and experienced). This site gives a clear look of the current market trend and the oppurtunities that can be obtained from it, through means of a professional resume. This site has all the features to help you out with the resume building capability.
I totally agree to your article written about resumes. Yes, it is true, you have but once to make that first impression! Your resume is what opens the door for there to even be a job interview yet so many people just copy things they see on the internet or throw one together at the last minute. Do they not realize that hiring managers see 1000′s of resumes a day and can easily weed out the true resumes from the bad ? Your resume should reflect your personality and make a statement about you. Do you have any kind of job alerts at resumebear?
Hi everyone, If you happen to see this comment then I’m sure you must have gone through the contents and made a right decision to build your future. This site is very creative and it delivers clear thoughts to start building our resume and tips for making our resume pop up to the top of the list. As we all know resume is the first expression of ourself, it is more important to take care for building it!!!
Very helpful tips. Good for anybody that’s looking for a job. I was impressed with the quality AND quantity of advice.
Great tips… and timely. I know more people without jobs than with jobs right now. Hopefully over the next few months people will be able to find long term positions. I’ve been working for a temporary agency since August 09.
I completely agree with you. I work as a Recruitment Consultant for a Software firm. We found out last year that 60% of the resumes that we received either had spelling or grammatical errors. It really amazes me.
The new blog design is nice. Everything is very easy to read and the new content includes very useful tips.
Excellent advice! I would like to add a tip – Job seekers do not need to find and copy a resume online word for word. Recruiters see a lot of resumes. You would be very surprised at how many people have done this.
I agree 110%. In my experience as an HR employee, I have been amazed at how many people show up to drop off their resume looking like a total train wreck. advice to people is “Dress for Success” even when dropping off your resume. I’ve even seen people show up in pjs.
I am excited about the new site launch with new resume builder and tracking features. The new blog looks fantastic, it is very easy to read and navigate.
People do not realize that the resume you submit is their “first impression” of you. You never get that chance again, so the resume must be an attention grabber. It must be forthright and honest. Do not leave out information that is pertinent to the job you are lookig for.
Whether you are a first time job seeker of an experienced professional you will benefit from ResumeBear’s online Resume Builder and resume tracking system.
Very useful tips regarding “five more resume blunders that will land you in the trash”. The job market in 2010 is more competitive than ever. Utilizing every available resource to your advantage is often the roadmap to your new job.
To my knowledge, there is only one recruitment software which is equally popular amongst the recruiters and the jobseekers.
It is “ Resume Rater “.
Recruiters love it because it enables them to find the 5 best resumes out of 5000 received against their advt., in a matter of minutes.
Jobseekers like it because rating their own resumes [ using “ Resume Rater ” ], before sending to recruiters, tells them whether it will get listed in those “ best 5 “ !
One can download “Resume Rater“[ free and without login ]
from almost any link on the first 2 pages of Google search results ( – although there are 59.4 million links ! )
with regards
hemen parekh
PS
Rating own resumes [ and those of class-mates ], could be an interesting exercise for fresh graduates !
On my resume, how do I indicate that I was laid off but am listed as a rehire in my last employers’ system?
Great info, thanks for the info. I can’t wait for the launch contest to begin.
In as much as some people would like to use a personalized email address in their resume to highlight one of their best qualities, such as John@24SevenService.com or Kelly@EthicsBeforeMoney.com, they simply don’t know how to go about it. On the other hand, some people get carried aways and create silly email addresses which end up costing them the job they might have gotten otherwise. Will you hire an otherwise qualified person if his email address is Tom@LoveToParty.com? A wise choice may get you a job and while bad one may hurt you.
In my opinion (as a writer and communications professional), HR folks and hiring managers have become way too sensitive about typos in resumes. Here’s why:
It is critical to keep in mind that, unless such errors are egregious, the overwhelming majority of resume writers are normal people who do not possess teams of proof-readers like corporate communications departments. Plus, when they do have them proofread, which I’d imagine nearly all of them do, those proofers are not professionals … they’re friends and family used to being friends and family, not expert error-checkers, so they’re certainly bound to miss something. When is the last time your mom and dad read up on the Chicago Manual of Style?
It’s important to be realistic when judging folks based on resume typos … we’re all human, we all miss errors (particularly after constantly changing such an insanely boring document as a resume), and each of us has made many an error in written documents before. Ever sent an email with a typo? A tweet, a hand-written letter? Ever speak the wrong word in conversation and not catch it?
What is that famous saying about “He who is without sin…” casting the first stone? Let’s cut job seekers a break. It’s tough enough out there to provide for one’s family these days without the grammar police tossing qualified candidates in the proverbial trash heap solely because of an insignificant typo on a resume.
Don’t agree? I’ll start compiling a list of books proofed and edited by reams of people that still possess errors. If multi-billion dollar publishing companies are making these mistakes in books being read by millions of people, how is it possible that we can hold the individual job seeker to levels of perfection even these institutions cannot master?
I would suggest job seekers to optimize your resume for most common errors. Also keep abreast yourself with the knowledge of resume writing skill.
shawn mentor recently posted..What is an occupational resume?