April 19, 2024

7 Most Common Resume Mistakes

The first step in finding a job is creating a resume that is competent and attractive to the employer. A good resume is the key to a good start in your job search. It’s impossible to create a resume in 5 minutes. It is important to think over, clearly analyze the collected information and draw up a plan for its presentation.

As strange as it sounds, creating a resume is a painstaking process that requires care and literacy. You may need to re-read and proofread it several times until the perfect sample is reached. Indeed, according to a study by the specialists of Personal Career Management, almost 90% of applicants make the same mistakes when writing a resume.

Common mistakes when writing a resume

Here are some of the most common mistakes that everyone makes and that reduce the chances of a good job. Let’s conditionally highlight 7 key points:

  • grammatical, spelling mistakes, ugly design. The future employer will not understand why the mistakes were made: a typo or a person’s illiteracy. A resume with errors is immediately sent to the trash (basket);
  • No purpose: Your resume should have a clearly stated purpose. If in your resume you are simultaneously applying for several positions, then your goal is vague;
  • bad photo. In the photo, you must be portrayed in a formal style: a neat look, a business suit (dress). Tousled hair, frayed jeans, a short T-shirt and you in front of a bar counter – all this is unacceptable. At the same time, there should not be any caps and sunglasses in the photo;
  • little needed (useful) information about you. Your task is to indicate as much interesting and useful information about yourself as possible. In this case, the information should relate especially to the vacancy for which you are applying;
  • lack of key skills related to the position;
  • a lot of personal information that is absolutely not interesting to the employer;
  • lack of professional achievements. A resume is a kind of self-advertisement. The total term of work, experience is not an achievement. But what will interest the employer is: sales growth, the discovery of a new technology or software development, a new branch.

How to write a competent resume

To avoid the errors listed above, it is recommended:

  • when writing a resume, avoid complex sentences with a pile of different phrases. If you are not sure about the staging of a coma or colon, then simply reformulate the sentence;
  • clearly state one position for which you are applying. If you are considering several vacancies for one company, then it is worth writing several resumes. The golden rule is one resume – one vacancy;
  • your skills and knowledge should correspond to the vacancy for which the resume is being applied. It is not necessary to write all your knowledge, courses in one form: it is necessary only on the topic;
  • with personal information, you just need to indicate: full name, date of birth, contact number and email address;
  • if your plans are to develop, then it is necessary to prescribe what technologies you are ready to study and how much time to spend on it.

You should never submit a template resume. The more similar your resume is to others, the less likely it will be seen and read. A typical phrase: “Ready to learn” no longer surprises anyone. When you write your resume, read it from the perspective of the employer: evaluate whether this information could interest you.