Résumé- Do’s & Dont’s

It’s relatively easy to make mistakes on your résumé and exceptionally difficult to repair the damage once an employer gets it. Always consider that hiring managers receive dozens if not hundreds, of résumés for any given posting.

You may be perfect for the job, but if your résumé has just one typo, if it’s formatted poorly, or you use the wrong font, it could easily end up in the “no” pile.

So prevention is critical, whether you’re writing your first resume or revising it for a mid-career job search.

Check out this résumé guide below for the do’s and don’ts of résumé making:

1. Irrelevant work experiences.
Yes, you might have been the waiter of the month at the restaurant you worked for in college. But unless you are planning on redeeming that title, it is time to get rid of all that clutter.

2. Your hobbies
Unfortunately nobody cares about that anymore. If it’s not relevant to the job you’re applying for, it’s a waste of space and a waste of the company’s time.

3. Typos, Grammatical Errors & incorrect Information
Your resume needs to be grammatically perfect. If it isn’t, employers will read between the lines and draw not-so-flattering conclusions about you. Also if you say you’re detail-oriented, and they pick up incorrect information on your résumé, it’s a big red flag.

4. Jack of all Trades
Whenever you try to develop a jack of all trades resume to send to all employers, you almost always end up with something employers will almost certainly throw in the bin. It is of the utmost importance that you draft a copy specifically for the company you apply for. They expect you to clearly show how and why you fit the position in a specific organization.

5. A less-than-professional email address.
I’m still not sure how most adults have email addresses that are not professional. If you still use an old email address, like CoolKid619@gmail.com or Fluffy_Bunny@iCloud.com, it’s time to pick a new one.

6. Fancy fonts.
Curly-tailed fonts are also not advised. When people try to make their CV’s more fancy by adding a fancy font, studies actually show that they are harder to read and the recruiter absorbs less about you. So stick to a more modern professional font like Arial or Calibri.

Lastly, there has been a lot of speculation when it comes to whether one should have a one or two page résumé. The answer to that age old question is to keep it as brief as possible and include only the most recent and relevant information to the position you’re applying for.

The idea being to reach one page, however If you can succinctly quantify your accomplishments to tell how you made a role, job, project, or assignment better and you need more than one page to demonstrate it effectively, that will be alright. Provided you don’t go over two pages.