12 Costly Resume Mistakes You Should Avoid

Employers judge you by what you write on your resume. Employers normally make decisions whether to consider you for a given position or not in minutes. It is easy to make mistakes on your resume that can potentially disqualify you. Whether you're writing your first resume or revising it for a mid-career job search, it is very important that you avoid costly mistakes. Here are some errors that may potentially disqualify you from further considerations.

1. Not knowing what the employer is asking

First and foremost, you will need to understand what the employer is asking for the job you are applying. Instead of thinking about yourself, think and understand what the employer wants in his/her ideal candidate. Next, you will need to examine your skills and background to determine exactly what you can offer to the employer. It is never a good idea to write cover letter or resume that is not an answer to the job requirements. Employers are looking for someone who can help solve their problems immediately. Think and write how you can help them. Address any requirements or questions posed in the job advertisements directly. Even if you don’t have a lot to offer to a given job, it always good to demonstrate that you have understood what the job is exactly and the job requirements.

2. Irrelevant Information

You don’t need to provide information about marital status, whether you are married or single, religion, height, and weight. All of this information is irrelevant for any job, but may be considered against you in the selection process. It may show to the employer that you are are not a seasoned professional. Provide only relevant information, including your full name, address, telephone number, and email address.

3. Typos, grammatical errors, incorrect titles

Your resume needs to be grammatically perfect. If it isn't, employers will read between the lines and draw no good conclusions about you, like: "This person incompetent," or "This person doesn't care." One of the worst things you can do is send resume that was written for another company or job. Make sure you address the company and job in question. Proofread your resume. Make it look clean and standout. When all is done, convert it into PDF file, instead of sending it as Doc file.

4. Sending the same resume to all

Whenever you try to develop a one-size-fits-all resume to send to all employers, you almost always end up with nothing. Employers want you to write a resume specifically for them. They expect you to clearly show how and why you fit the position in a specific organization.

5. Visually too busy, messy resume

If your resume is wall-to-wall text featuring five different fonts, it will most likely give the employer a headache. So show your resume to several other people before sending it out. Do they find it visually attractive? If what you have is hard on the eyes, revise.

6. Lack of specifics

Employers need to understand what you've done and accomplished. For example:
A. Worked with employees in a restaurant setting.
B. Recruited, hired, trained and supervised more than 20 employees in a restaurant with $2 million in annual sales.
Both of these phrases could describe the same person, but the details and specifics in example B will more likely grab an employer's attention.

7. Highlighting duties instead of accomplishments

It's easy to slip into a mode where you simply start listing job duties on your resume. For example:
• Attended group meetings and recorded minutes;
• Worked with children in a day-care setting;
• Updated departmental files.
Employers, however, don't care so much about what you've done as what you've accomplished in your various activities. They're looking for statements more like these:
• Used laptop computer to record weekly meeting minutes and compiled them in a Microsoft Word-based file for future organizational reference.
• Developed three daily activities for preschool-age children and prepared them for a 10-minute holiday program performance.
• Reorganized 10 years worth of unwieldy files, making them easily accessible to department members.

8. Having too long or too short resumes

There aren’t hard rules about resume length. However, you should not start sending out five-page resumes. That is considered too long. Generally speaking, you usually need to limit yourself to a maximum of two pages. One is even better, if you can do it; don't feel you have to use two pages if one will do. Conversely, don't cut the meat out of your resume simply to make it conform to an arbitrary one-page standard.

9. Vague career objective

Employers do read your resume objective, but too often they plow through vague pufferies like, "Seeking a challenging position that offers professional growth." Give employers something specific and, more importantly, something that focuses on their needs as well as your own. Example: "A challenging entry-level marketing position that allows me to contribute my skills and experience in fund-raising for nonprofits."

10. Lack of action verbs

Avoid using phrases like "responsible for." Instead, use action verbs such as: "Resolved user questions as part of an IT help desk serving 4,000 students and staff."

11. Leaving off important information

You may be tempted, for example, to eliminate mention of the jobs you've taken to earn extra money for school. Typically, however, the soft skills you've gained from these experiences (e.g., work ethic, time management) are more important to employers than you might think.

12. Incorrect contact information

There was a case of a student whose resume seemed incredibly strong, but he wasn't getting any bites from employers. So one day, when he checked his contact info, it wasn't correct. Once he changed it, he started getting the calls he'd been expecting. Double-check even the most minute, taken-for-granted details.

The best way to write your resume is probably to start from ready-made sample that you can then customize. Ezega Jobs has several resume samples you can choose from and customize to suit your needs. Please click here to download Ezega Jobs Resume Samples.

You will also need an excellent cover letter that will go with your resume. Please click here to read about How to Write Perfect Cover Letter.

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