What To Avoid In Your Resume!

Given we are dealing with HR professionals we rarely see the resume horrors other more general recruiters report. However, horrors aside, we do come across some content that makes us groan rather than reach for the phone to arrange an interview!

Here are our top 10 things to avoid in your resume

1. Cute, funny or suggestive email addresses. An email address (such as hotlips@hotmail.com) may have an interesting story to go with it, but it doesn’t make the best professional impression.
2. Using superlative descriptors of yourself. You may consider yourself to be incredible, outstanding, superior, exceptional etc. but this is of course subjective. Aside from that, it sounds very false and not what happens in real life.  How many of us describe ourselves as outstanding cooks, brilliant parents or superior golfers to people we meet?!  Instead just let your well written resume reflect the level of your abilities.
3. ‘Borrowed’ words. Writing a resume can be challenging, especially if it has been a number of years since your last edit or if you are new to the market. Avoid hiding your skills and experience amongst a mass of ‘on trend’ words you sourced from someone else’s resume or the internet.
4. Lots of style changes and colours. There is one golden rule for formatting your resume: less is more.  Make it easy to read and run off a test hard copy to ensure your formatting prints as it should.
5. Personal information. Your marital/partner status, gender, sexual preference, age, ethnicity is completely immaterial to your application. WHY do HR people still do this? You know the risks, not to mention the legalities.
6. Avoid details about your kids. We know you love them and we understand your pride in them but they are not, and should not be, relevant to your application.
7. Too much waffle. If it’s longer than 2-4 pages, check it for waffle content.
8. Bad spelling and grammar. There is no point is saying you have great attention to detail and then writing ‘look forward to hearing from you shorty’. You cannot rely on spellcheck to do the hard work for you.  Proof read what you have written and then ask a friend or colleague to proof read it as well.
9. Gaps in timelines with no information….we hate them. Tell us what you were doing. If you were trekking in the Andes, running your own business or caring for elderly relatives or children – tell us, just don’t leave it blank.
10. Lies and embellishments. We usually find out and when we do the damage you do to your reputation is often hard to fix.