Last week I shared with you the announcement of the new Guide to Resumes and Cover Letters (found in CareerConnector under the “Documents” tab), and how it includes guidelines for writing your resume and cover letter, sample resumes and cover letters, and more. This week I wanted to provide you a list of things you should NOT include on your resume. The following items are all things many recruiters say they don’t want to see:
- Inconsistent formatting: HR managers are looking for reasons to throw out your resume, not reasons to keep your resume. For them, inconsistent formatting (i.e. dates in italics in one section and in bold in another section) is reason enough to reduce the number of resumes they have to read.
- Fonts that are too small or difficult to read: Think about it. After looking at hundreds or even thousands of resumes, would you want to strain your eyes to read something written in a 9 point Arial Narrow all-caps font?
- Misspelled words and grammatical errors: Does this really need an explanation?
- Personal pronouns: Never write in first person on a resume.
- Personal information: Items such as age, nationality/race, marital status, and number of children do not belong on a resume. The reason is because it is illegal for hiring managers to make hiring decisions based on such information. If that information is offered upfront by the candidate, the HR staff will be hesitant to even touch the resume for fear of being accused of discrimination if the candidate does not end up being offered the job.
- Photo: It is appropriate and even encouraged to have your photo on your LinkedIn profile, but not necessarily on your resume.
- Objective statement: Objective statements were once necessary when the candidate pool wasn’t so large. Now, employers and HR managers want to instead see a summary of your qualifications. That summary helps them when having to quickly scan through a huge volume of resumes. In other words, it’s not necessary, but if you’re looking to fill up some empty space, go ahead and include it.
- High school: If you have a college degree or are currently working toward a college degree, the reader will know that you have a high school diploma.
- Relevant coursework: Your degree should be enough for the reader to have an understanding of your educational background, especially if the person interviewing you has a similar educational background. Use that space instead to give strong descriptions of your past jobs. Or, you may have some coursework outside your major that may be helpful for the job. List those courses instead of the standard major coursework.
- Job descriptions that don’t include results or accomplishments: This is the biggest mistake I see people make on their resume. Yes, you need to list your duties in your jobs, but you don’t want them to read like an entry level job description. Instead, you want to also include the impact of what you’ve done in your past jobs. Did you significantly increase the company’s or client’s number of Twitter followers during your social media internship? If so, by how much? Were you recognized for work? Did you help save the company money or time? Did you do anything that no one before you accomplished and no one after you can duplicate? This is the kind of information the reader needs and wants to see. This information is what helps your resume advance to the next round instead of being trashed.
- Lengthy descriptions of the companies for which you previously worked: I have yet to understand why a candidate would want to take up several lines of their resume to sell the merits of their former company instead of the merits of themselves. The reader wants to know about YOU, and the purpose of your resume is to market YOU, not your previous employer.
- Irrelevant jobs or jobs that occurred more than 7-10 years ago: If you have experience that is relevant to the industry or job position in addition to other experience that is not relevant to that field, leave off the jobs that are irrelevant. If you want to keep the irrelevant experience to show that you have not had a gap in your employment history, then divide your “Experience” section into two different sections: “Relevant Experience” and “Additional Experience.” This allows you to move your most relevant experience higher up in the resume while still keeping everything in reverse chronological order. Also, do not include any jobs you held more than 7-10 years ago unless you are still in that job.
- Past supervisors’ names: You only have to include your past supervisor’s name on a job application, not on a resume.
- Outdated/obsolete computer skills: Doing so just shows your age or your inability to keep abreast of the latest technology needed to accomplish results.
- Languages that you cannot speak fluently or confidently: You wouldn’t list a foreign language you cannot speak well for the same reason you would not list activities in which you are not actively involved. I have seen people be asked to speak the foreign language listed on their resume in the job interview and could not do so. That’s when the interview ended abruptly.
- Activities in which you are not actively involved: If you only did the bare minimum in your participation of an organization, you should not list it. Employers love to pull interview questions from your resume, and if they ask you how you contributed to a particular organization listed on your resume and all you did was attend a few meetings, it will make you look bad.
- Irrelevant interests: While it may make sense to include an “Interests” section on your resume if you for some reason don’t have enough information to fill up an entire page, it really only makes sense to do so when the interests are relevant to the industry or job for which you are applying, or they are ones that the person interviewing you may possibly have in common. I remember once reading a resume that had an “Interests” section and within it the candidate actually listed “eating peanut butter” as an interest. Perhaps she was trying to be cute or use that as a conversation starter, but all I could picture in my head was someone with peanut butter smeared all over her face and smacking as she ate it!
- Sports, UNLESS…: This kind of goes with the line of thought in the bullet above. You would not want to include sports you’ve played if you don’t have enough room on your resume for it. However, if you played a sport that could come in handy for the job (i.e. basketball when applying for a job working with youth, or golf when applying for a job where you will be expected to take clients golfing or make deals on the golf course), then it would make sense to list it.
- References: References belong on a separate sheet in the same format as your resume.
- “References available upon request”: This phrase is a given and therefore does not need to be included. Instead, use that space for something more marketable, or include a phrase that says “Professional portfolio available for review” (but only if you have a professional portfolio, which you should).