6 common mistakes to avoid in your resume
[Originally posted on what used to be a separate blog 'On jobs, work and careers' and later was merged into this blog.]
These days I am asked to review a few resumes per week, all of them for technical candidates. It is astounding how many people will write things on their resumes that make it hard to support a “let’s interview” recommendation.
Some of these things are mild irritants that prevent the reader from focusing on the important bits of the resume; some are serious ‘red flags’ that practically disqualify the candidate. Many of these annoyances keep coming up again and again. Here are six common ones:
- Distracting the reader with irrelevant personal information, such as a photography, marital status, nationality or age. This information can subtly bias the reader, so it is always wise to leave it out unless explicitly asked for (note that in many countries it is illegal for a potential employer to ask about things such as age and marital status, unless they can prove that this data is directly related to your ability to do your job).
- Lumping together heterogeneous terms in a skill list. For example: “Programming languages: C, C++, HTML, Java”.
- Focusing on irrelevant details in a description of a previous project. For example: “Developed e-commerce site. Technologies used: Eclipse, [...]“.
- Using all possible hype words that you can come up with. For example: “Developed e-commerce site making extensive use of Design Patterns and UML, leveraging modern AJAX technology for Web 2.0 community building while making extensive use of open-source agile bazaar-style software engineering methods.”
- Using all the wrong keywords in a role description. For example: “Cool Company Inc. Position: Senior Engineer. Accomplishments: Organized meetings, coordinated conferences, drafted documentation, did sales presentation for end customers.”
- Claiming “extensive experience” in some area, and not providing any evidence that this is indeed the case. For example: “Experienced Java programmer with detailed JVM knowledge. [And then resume lists 3 previous jobs where the work was done in C++.]“
July 4, 2007 Filed under: career
6 comments
The first three items you list are things that in Spain you are told must be in your resume. I’ve always disagreed since reading Google’s guidelines for resumes, which I thought much more sensible; but the fact is that young people (in Spain at least) are still told to do it this way, and unless they are told outright to stop, they still will.
Of course I understand how it is specially frustrating for you, when you company has a web page with a smal howto on writing a resume!
Lu, yes, you are absolutely right: the first bullet point in my list is very much a cultural issue. In many European countries (not just in Spain) people are expected to put a picture on their resume, and their marital status and even things like their driver’s license.
I understand that and of course I have it in mind when reviewing someone’s CV. But, unless explicitly asked, I would recommend omitting this information. To quote a coach from Chalmers’ (the Swedish university where I studied) Career Service: “avoid putting on your CV anything that could possibly be used to discriminate against you”.
The person that reviews your resume will try to be as objective as possible, but they are still human and have their own biases and prejudices, even if they try hard to not let them cloud their judgment.
@1: It might be a cultural issue. In Germany you will asked also to include your age, genre, nationality and a picture (resume photography is part of German culture). Most people feel like they are going to be discriminated by these personal data, but there is little choice.
@2,3,4,5: new graduates have usually no experience and they will try to fill at least one page with whatever sounds good to them. Lu pointed some possible reasons for that in another post.
@6: incoherences occur as results of “tuning process”. This proves that applicants with experience make same errors as newbies.
Hi Ana,
First of all congratulations for this new blog! (or section)
I agree with you about most of the points, but may you give some examples (or guidelines) of how should be a position description or even how to show your skills without falling into the 2nd point
. Thanks
[...] the comments on the post about common resume mistakes, Paco was asking for a good example for a coherent skill list. For a good way to ’sell’ [...]
Paco, I’ve written a little post to try to answer your question. Check it out: http://anaulin.org/on_jobs_work_and_careers/2007/07/06/a-sample-skill-list/.
Leave a Comment