After reading a few resume articles online and feeling completely frustrated by their bad advice I decided to clarify a few important points. Given the multitude of misinformation out there regarding resume tips, strategies, and techniques I want to help set the record straight. Here are the five best ways to get your resume thrown in the trash by a potential hiring manager.
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Forget to include a cover letter. Not attaching a cover letter to a resume is like shooting in the dark. Hiring managers are receiving hundreds of resumes for vacancies every week and if they don’t know where to place you from the start you’re likely to be discarded altogether. Clearly indicate on your cover letter which position you are applying to and why. Don’t assume they’ll just get it from reading your resume. - Use an objective. Point blank objectives are bad form. No one uses an objective anymore because they express what you – the employee wants versus how you can supply what the employer needs. Instead utilize a career summary that will ‘show’ not just ‘tell’ the employer how you can meet their needs.
- Use headings like profile and career summary versus a powerful sales pitch. Do not waste space is what I tell my professional resume writers. Think of a Career Profile as a FREE billboard that you can use to advertise your best attributes. Instead of titling your Career Summary – Career Summary create an eye-catching sales pitch like: Award-winning and market-driven sales strategist. See how instead we’re selling them on who you are from the start?
- Leave out keywords. Not just keywords but industry specific keywords and your resume may not even make it into the hiring manager’s hand never mind landing in the trash. I read an online article on a wildly popular job board site that stated only 25% of recruiters use scanners to find resumes so keywords were overrated. They couldn’t be more wrong! Did they forget about how over 90% of major employers use job boards to find qualified candidates?! What does a job board do? It scans its database of resumes based on the industry specific keywords a recruiter enters and pulls up all applicable resumes by relevance. Guess who is the most relevant? You guessed it the person with the most matching keywords. Here is an example of industry specific keywords: account manager, accounts payable, account executive, sales manager, human resources manager, executive trainer. Here is an example of what a keyword is not: great communicator, excellent presentation skills, team builder, or written and verbal skills.
- Small mistakes or grammatical errors. It always pays to have someone else review your resume. They will find little goofs that your eyes will overlook. Even one small error like leaving out a punctuation mark, misspelling a word, or leaving a sentence unfinished. These are resume killers and ALWAYS land your resume promptly in the trash can. Choose one or two people to review your resume and if you don’t know anyone with great editing skills there are companies out there or writers out there you can hire just to review and edit your resume.
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About Jessica: Jessica Holbrook is a former Executive Hiring Manager for Fortune 500 companies and President/CEO of Great Resumes Fast. She creates powerful, customized, and targeted resumes that are guaranteed to get her clients interviews. For a free resume analysis visit http://www.greatresumesfast.com or for a free phone consultation call 1.877.875.7706. |
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
You forgot #6, send a resume to someone you don’t know or have no connections with.
Job-hunting in this new world is not about resume or cover letter, is about knowing how to get in the right place. lack of networking skills is worse than not knowing how to spell.
I am just saying…
As of late I have been getting resumes from Accountants that leave their name, email and phone number off their resume. I have also received resumes where you have to hunt for that information. The other mistake I come across is people telling me that they are a quick learners, and how much people like them in their cover letter. I so wish people could stick to tangible wins and career highlights!!!!
In this technologically advanced age, especially with search engines being dominant throughout the industry, #4 cannot be emphasized enough! Keywords are the most important element of how your resume rises to the top in order to just recieve that initial phonecall from a recruiter or HR professional.
And a search engine is NOT ADD inflicted like most hiring managers and doesn’t count how many pages your resume has— so make it as long as needed. A shorter resume can be sent with cover to a live contact.
>>>And a search engine is NOT ADD inflicted like most hiring managers and doesn’t count how many pages your resume has— so make it as long as needed.
You are the first person I have heard say this. After years of being told to keep it to 2 pages, a manager told me less than 3 made it look like I hadn’t bothered! I sweat blood to condense mine down!
>>>I so wish people could stick to tangible wins and career highlights!!!!
This is so hard! I am not a sales person – I tend to do my job to the best of my ability and, once I’ve succeeded, I move on to the next. I find it really difficult to identify these.
Jessica, Your post is concise, relevant, and totally on-point! Articles like yours continue to add value to those of us who are working feverishly for new employment, doing our due diligence, researching tips and hints, only to become hopeless overwhelmed with contradictory information. Thanks for helping us maintain our sanity and morale by enabling us to sort out the chaff from the grain amoung all the info that is floating on the net.
Love the post – dead on. We give our candidates the same advice. Objectives are a thing of the past – don’t limit yourself by using them. Keywords are huge – we recommend viewing the job description(if possible) on the company Web site and plugging any relevant keywords into your resume when appropriate. This way, you are framing your experience to what the employer needs.
Go figure. I just condensed my resume to 2 pages for YEARS of experience. It was so difficult. And now I’m not getting any responses where before, on my really long resume, people would contact me. Hmmm…guess I better put it back…(along with all the key words)!
Good article – the cover letter is especially important IMHO when faced with navigating a recruitment company. Take the key points in the job add and explain how you fit the requirement; it’s worth remembering that in general jobs are posted to a number of recruiters and each recruiter may only be permitted to put two; perhaps three candidates forward. Whilst your CV/Resume needs to target the hiring company your cover letter may well be targeting the recruiter first and if the recruiter selects you then they will do everything possible to make you an attractive proposition to the hiring organisation.
Yet another piece of contradiction. Recruiters have told me that they do NOT read cover letters. Assuming that a resume is sent in via an “apply for this job” button, I suspect that one is simply wasting one’s time in many cases.
Jassica – can you explain why soemthing that was obligatory a few years ago (objectives) is now frowned upon? Is this just fashion.
That said, I did just manage to hook a first pre-screeing pre-interview with a recruiter by tweaking some key words. Not an actual interview you onderstand, but a chat with a contract recruiter to maybe set up a screening talk with the HR person fronting the actual hiring person……
John
Opinion on resumes are like armpits everybody has one and they all stink. A person can go crazy working on resumes. In todays economy Resume writters are foaming at the mouth. When one idea is exhausted they change the playing field like todays special. There is some merit to what has been said about spelling and grammer. Getting your resume read is like playing the lottery. Companies are overwhelmed with resumes. They would need a team of HR reps to sort through them all. You have to net work or be lucky. Also you need to be willing to take a pay cut. In todays market they are going cheap. All part of Obamas Stimulus package.
I agree. When writing a resume, better be conservative and stay out of those trends. The essential ingredients of a good resume will always remain the same; it has to be concise, clear, focused and professional. How one goes about it is a matter of preference.
I could not agree with you more about all of these tips. When we posted an opening for a part-time administrative assistant we received no less than 300 responses within 24 hours. The ones we did not consider were indeed for the very reasons you list. One question that was very telling to us was and critical to our hiring criteria was to know the reason they were seeking a part-time position. We wanted to sift out anyone whom we thought would take this position just to tide them over until something more substantial came along. The end result for us was that we found the right person for the right reasons.
Reading all your comments, I would sugest for all that job seekers, to make some different resumes:
1. large and complete with all the keywords
2. short and with a cover letter
3. whatever else you heard out there and send it to the same Recruiter in separate emails in different time and… may be that way you can catch their eyes, no matter their preferences!
Some other advices:
1. If you don’t meet the requirements of the position, don’t send the resume!
2. Always put in the subject what position are you applying for.
3. If you are goodloking, add a photo! If you are not, better you don’t!
4. If you put a phone number, keep the phone turned on!
5. If you put an email adress please keep checking them!
6. Use a common and compatible software to make your resume.
Good Luck, Lorena Silva.
Lorena is a hiring especialist in México. She has provided services for Fortune 500 companies since more than 10 years. She is currently working in Jobbox, a personnel services company in Reynosa, Mexico. Mail: contacto@jobbox.com.mx
Very interesting article! I enjoy reading other Human Resource Professional points of view.
While I was also raised on the idea the cover letter is just as important as the resume, now that I am in the hiring seat; I beg to differ. I often go right to the resume, failing to review the cover letter at all. I find the resume and it’s keywords of more importance to me. Generally people will drone on with their cover letter.
I would be interested to see a poll of the importance of a cover letter to hiring managers / HR departments.
Hi there,
Good to know about resume secrets and views about them.
I feel most of the points are valid, to varying degree.
Let’s say here in India, cover letters are not much in vogue. Since resumes are forward either through emails or through Job portals cover letters aren’t much required.
Objectives are still required, to tell a screening person or a potential employer what kind of job you are looking for.
I have always been a champion of keywords or buzzwords. My study of Job portals mechanism and ATS, & some Search Engine Optimization knowledge tells me that a resume must have all the possible keywords in enough frequency. That is a complete range of keywords occurring sufficient times. A study reveled that an average recruiter spends between 30 seconds to 60 seconds in over viewing a resume, hence if that person doesn’t see any familiar terms or jargon then likelihood of being short listed reduces substantially.
Grammar and spellings have to be immaculate for any professional documents, goes without saying.
Length of resume is one thing which is often confusing. But I think 2 pages should suffice even a 4 decade career.
Thanks.
Resumes only became customary after World War II, as a means for employers to eliminate unqualified candidates among scores of GIs looking for new jobs. Not much has changed. Nowadays, nearly every individual, starting a job search, begins by developing a resume, but decision makers only spend and average of ten seconds scanning them. A resume cannot do the heavy lifting in a job search. Its purpose is strictly to function, in conjunction with a follow-up call, as a marketing tool to initiate a conversation with the decision maker. Your goal should be to present your background and accomplishments in a visually appealing, reverse chronological order, with dates, succinctly and honestly. Stay away from functional resumes, extensive formatting and leaving dates off to hide age. A resume is like Coco Chanel once said, “When a woman is badly dressed, you notice the clothes. When a woman is well dressed, you notice the woman.” You can’t build chemistry on deception.
Another example of bad resume writing is copying and pasting a job description, rather than describing accomplishments. I’ve seen resumes from people who have held similar positions at different employers and use the same job description for each job on their resume.
I think the article is great and some great comments have been added. I have worked in HR/Recruiting for 15+ years as a recruiter and in various other roles. I think some of the comments made will vary from company to company. Personally,I think the cover letter is helpful in some cases if it is used to elaborate on specific skills or accomplishments that will support your qualifications for the job. In many cases the cover letter is not written that way and is not going to add much value.
Also, I don’t think you should focus on the number of pages but instead on the content of your resume. If you focus on content and making sure that you have given the recruiter a clear picture of your background then the number of pages will end up where it should be. For someone with 20 years of experience that may be three or more pages but for a new college graduate that may be just one page. You shouldn’t try to add content that isn’t necessary in order to fill up 2 or 3 pages because that is how the resume will come across.
You need to have an arsenal of resumes based on the types of positions that you are interested in obtaining. Gone are the days of having just one resume. Some of the resumes that I have recently rewritten for people originally didn’t include enough content and it was difficult to get a clear picture of what their responsibilities were or there were lots of grammatical errors. If you write your resume on your own then you should definitely have someone else review it once you’ve finished.