It is said that a hiring manager takes about 6 to 10 second to scan your resume. It is like a written interview, which is essential to opening gates to the job you aspire. Today, we are going to jot down 10 things that you must NOT mention in your resume.
1. An objective
This might be a point of contention among many people, but writing an objective is usually redundant. Only write it if you are looking to change industries completely, and start working in a new niche.
2. Irrelevant work experiences
A music company would have nothing no to with your milkshake making skills. Neither a writing job would do with your car repairing experience. Only quote past work experiences if they are directly related to the job you are applying for or might show your relevant depth, ability, or skill.
3. Personal details
Don’t include your marital status, religion, Social Security number or even home address. In this day and age, this could lead to serious security problems, and even some kind of discrimination against you.
4. Your hobbies
No one cares about your baseball skills, or how many times you won spelling bee contests. It simply wastes precious space on the resume as well as company’s precious time. Only quote them if they are, in some way, a reflection of useful transferable skills needed in the job you are applying for.
5. Blatant lies
A survey held with 2,000 hiring managers yielded some astonishing lies being found in the resumes. Likes included the candidate claiming to be the former CEO of the company in which he was applying, or being a Nobel Prize winner. Another was caught claiming to have attended a college that didn’t exist.
Just stay honest about your qualifications and experiences, lying only shows that you are insecure about your accomplishments, and don’t consider true self to be worthy of this job. In most cases, the recruiters will agree with you.
6. Too much text
Don’t use a 0.5-inch margin and eight-point font to squeeze everything into one page. A professional recommendation is lots of white space with a 0.8 margin.
7. Too many bullets
Too many bullet points make your resume look overloaded and might cause “death by bullets” of your application. Just bullet point things that you think are important and leave the rest as normal text.
8. Inconsistency
Inconsistency in formatting, fonts, sizes, is a big no no! Make sure that scanning your resume is easy for the hiring manager, and pick at most two different fonts to work with on your resume.
9. Personal pronouns
Pronouns such as “I,” “me,” “she,” or “my,” are not professional. Don’t write your résumé in the third or first person, because the hiring manager already knows that everything on your résumé is about you and your personal experiences.
10. An unprofessional email address
Email addresses like HotieLover123@gmail.com or CuteChick4life@yahoo.com will show your immaturity and possibly result in your disqualification. If you still use one like this,
take a couple of minutes and change it.
Have any other resume building tips? Share them in the comments’ section below!