Avoid these resume errors and your job quest will be fruitful

Have you ever applied for a job you were certain of clinching, but after several weeks of waiting in vain for the life-changing call, you start asking yourself some self-reflecting questions? After all, the job description perfectly matched your profile. “Something must have gone wrong somewhere”, you thought.

What if something about your resume does not click with the job, even though you have the best of skills and experience?

In the course of my job as a recruiter over the years, I have seen cases of highly qualified candidates who have burnt their fingers and lost the opportunity for even the first interview, just because of some costly error they had made in their resume. Your resume is like your collateral for a loan. The value placed on it will determine whether you will be prequalified for the next stage.

The fact is that less than 50% of those who apply for a job are pretty ignorant of what is expected of them in their resume. As a result, they make some costly and deadly mistakes that terminate their job quest from the word go. The following are ten resume errors I will implore you to avoid at all costs.

1. A resume without a career summary

A resume that lacks a career summary is a pain in the neck of the resume screener. In a few lines, a good resume should tell the recruiter what you have done in the past, the skills and qualifications you have gathered over the years and what you can bring to the table in this new job. That is the essence of a career summary, which a good number of people fail to provide as the first and most important item on their resume.

2. Focusing on responsibilities instead of achievements

Resume experts and HR professionals will tell you that they prefer to see what you have achieved on your last job and not what you are currently doing by way of everyday responsibilities. Rest assured, thousands of people applying for the same job with you are performing the same or similar job functions as you. The only mark of difference will be what significant and quantifiable achievements you can boast of on your current and past jobs. Every hiring manager looks forward to see your track record and not your boring, routine tasks, which every Tom, Dick and Harry also perform.

For instance, your resume should have more of things like: “Reduced over-head costs by 45% percent within three months of taking over the role of facilities manager”, "Improved customer satisfaction by a factor of two after six months of analyzing results from a customer satisfaction survey", and less of things like “monitor the movement of company property”, “oversee stock-taking in all district warehouses”.

3. Badly formatted resumes

There is nothing as damaging as a badly formatted resume. A poorly written resume is a reflection of the quality of the writer. An experienced recruiter will not give you the opportunity for an interview, if he sees that you lack basic microsoft skills, for instance. In this age of paperless communication, it is expected that you have basic formatting skills, as this is a critical part of most jobs. An employer that sees this deficiency in your resume might as well refuse to risk hiring someone who will start learning computer basics when hired.

4. Listing irrelevant experiences or skills

Many applicants, out of ignorance, are in a hurry to impress the recruiter with information that end up backfiring. As much as possible, be formal. Let every information you provide be related in some way to the job you are seeking. You don’t want the HR guy to read a litany of vacations you have taken, the hobbies you enjoy, the number of children you have and so on. While it is good to spice up your resume, do it reasonably. The reviewer of your resume has so many other resumes to skim through and only needs what will boost your eligibility.

5. Relegating critical skills to the background

Your resume may be immediately consigned to the dustbin of history, if your prospective employer does not conspicuously see what relevant and critical skills you have from a first glance of your resume. That is the more reason why you should study the job description very well and craft a mouth-watering skills summary that will immediately turn on the interest of the recruiter. This section must come immediately after your profile summary.

6. Wordiness and verbiage

Recruiters hate to scan through resumes that make so much noise. In most cases, the more you words you use the more nonsense you tend to say and the more you piss off the recruiter. As much as possible make your resume reader friendly by hitting the nail on the head. Your recruiter wants to see precise and concise details and not some boring tale of your life’s history.

7. Sending your resume straight to the recruiter

The computer is not perfect, neither is the internet flawless. I once sent my resume to a friend of mine, who was going to help me forward it to his contacts to help with job opportunities. Low and behold! The resume I had painstakingly formatted had been greatly distorted by the time it got to his inbox. If I were to receive such resume as a recruiter, I would not look at it twice before I delete it off my system. The more reason why you should always send your resume to a friend’s email and check it out there for any distortions before you finally send it to your recruiter.

8. Listing references in your resume

Never make the mistake of providing your references in your resume. It is no one’s business until you get the job. Do not even say things like “to be provided on request”. Your employer would definitely request for them when you get the job. Remove such redundancies from your resume.

9. The use of personal pronouns

As much as possible, avoid the use of the ‘I’ or ‘We’ pronoun. Instead of saying “I am a dedicated software engineer with proven ability to deliver quality output’, say “A dedicated software engineer with proven ability to deliver quality output”. Instead of saying: “I coordinated the creation of a new department that generated $10 million in sales and increased profits by 22%, say: Oversaw the creation of new department that generated $10 million in sales and increased profits by 22%.

10. Using inappropriate email address

The email address you use for your job search speaks volume of you. When sending your resume for a job, avoid using informal, obscene and inappropriate email ids. Using an email address like ‘badguyintown22@yahoo.com’, will surely terminate your job search from inception. Use your informal addresses for informal campaigns, but not for job applications.

I’ll end this piece by urging you to see your resume as your advocate and mouth piece before the court of resume scrutiny. Recruitment experts are trained to see even the most trivial and seemingly immaterial blunders. Take your time before you send in your resume for any job. Dot your i’s and cross your t’s; have a second eye reviewer, preferably an HR person to critique your resume before you send it out. Very soon, you will hear the calls coming in torrents, inviting you for interviews.

Tread softly when using online career services

"The internet is one of the best things that has happened to humanity", someone once commented. With the tap of the keyboard, you can access information from millions of sources for a single search item. Gone are the days when you have to roam the streets seeking for distinct information which you then collate together. As a jobseeker in this time and age, you don’t have to go from company to company submitting your resume. You can do all your submissions from the comfort of your home. However, you must thread softly when using online recruitment services. I have been a victim of desperately fraudulent websites, whose sole aim is to rip off innocent and unsuspecting jobseekers.

My frank advice for you is never to be in a hurry to get your dream job. Never be desperate in your job search, else the wolves in sheep’s clothing will capitalize on your desperation and deal you a hard blow that you will never forget.

Job scams are becoming more and more popular and anyone who is not cautious enough can fall victim to them, especially those who are fresh from school and are looking for the first job that will open the door to other jobs. There’s nothing wrong with being too careful, especially when it comes to sending your resume and other personal information via the internet. As smart as you may be, there’s someone out there who’s using their intelligence to victimize innocent job seekers who are eager to hand over their information on a silver platter.

How can it happen to me, you may be thinking? They can’t do much with my information right? You are wrong! That is what others have said and they are now regretting. How does it happen? Websites such as Craigslist are home to dozens of scam artists who are posting fake job descriptions in the jobs section of the site. While these postings look real and seem to list a plethora of requirements, job descriptions, and pay information, there are some red flags you should be aware of.

Be careful and suspicious of job listings on popular sites which list outrageously high salaries that do not match the position being advertized. This is the beginning of many scams. In fact, genuine jobsites will not normally state a salary range in the advert.

Another fact you must have clear on your mind, is that real companies or employers will usually tell you the name of the company they are from and some will provide a company email address or phone number. When you are in doubt, send a reply email telling the would-be employer that you’re interested in knowing more about the position. If it is real and existent, they’ll email you back with more details. If you get an email requesting that you must log onto another website to provide your personal information along with social security number or credit card information, you should then know that something is fishy. Proceed no further

In your search, you must deal with only reputable websites such as Careerbuilder, Monster and Hotjobs. However, you’ll also need to be careful when using them. But I can say that these sites are among the most reliable job sites on the internet, where you have legitimate job listings most of the time. Do your research first before applying for a job. It may help to do a Google search and make sure the contact person and company don’t have any skeleton in his cupboard. Go in person to a company you’re interested in and inquire if they have applications you can fill out in person. Speak with an employment recruiter for agencies such as Kelly Services and Adecco which can sit down with you and explore several career options and do the dirty work for you.

In this era of information overload, you must be careful not to be overloaded with scams. Take your time in your job search; don’t make the simple mistake of handing your life over to wolves in sheep’s clothing. I wish you the very best in your job search and I pray that your search will last no longer than you wish.