As a globally recognized Certified Professional Resume Writer, Executive Recruiter, and founder of Haute Resume & Career Services LLC, I review hundreds of resumes each year for unemployed job seekers who’ve often spent months unsuccessfully searching for a job. Most of these costly mistakes are easily preventable when the job seeker has educated him/herself in the art of resume writing.
Avoid these common mistakes on your resume!
• Are you using an old school resume template that you found on the Internet? Many of these templates have serious flaws and will not work for a number of reasons. One of the biggest reasons is their incompatibility with certain Applicant Tracking System software (ATS). Many of the older templates have been created in tables. If the employer’s software program cannot extract the content from your resume it will often simply be deleted. Another reason these templates fail miserably can be the result of the job seeker selecting the wrong resume format. There are many times that the standard chronological resume format can actually make a candidate look much less experienced in their profession than they really are.
• Don’t waste your time with an old fashioned Objective Statement telling employers what you want in your next job. They would rather you make their job easy and sell them on why they should call you to interview rather than your competition.
• Your resume MUST be targeted to the position that you seek. If you use a backward-focused one-size-fits-all resume it is not likely to contain the industry relevant “keywords” necessary to be picked-up by the ATS software or present you as the IDEAL candidate for the position.
• An exceptional resume requires that you quantify your accomplishments whenever possible using numbers, dollar amounts, and percentages. This is the information that demonstrates both the level of responsibility you’ve held as well as the level of success that you’ve had in similar positions.
• Know your competition!
Do you know what a resume that has been professionally written looks like? If not, find out at http://www.anewresume.com/samples/home/ When you compare your resume to that of other candidates– who would you bring in to interview for the position? It is not unusual for employers to receive hundreds of resumes for a single position and they don’t have time to read each and every resume let alone call everyone in to interview. You must have the BEST resume both in content and appearance!
Creating a top-notch resume isn’t easy but it can be financially rewarding. Not only will you have a resume that can survive the dreaded blackhole of the employer’s database generating offers to interview and shortening your job search. It is also the document that employers refer to when deciding how much salary to offer. Mediocre resumes tend to generate mediocre salary offers.
Angela Jones, CPRW will work with you to assess your professional background, research the potential needs of employers in your industry, and design powerful marketing documents that help you get the job you want and the pay you deserv
