A tight economy means more competition for job seekers. When more people are out of work, employers get to pick the best of the best. A great resume is always important, but today it is more important than ever. If you want your resume to lead to a job interview, you do not want to make these 8 common mistakes.
1. Errors
Typos, spelling errors and grammatical errors are a sure-fire way to send your resume to the shredder. You might be unsurpassed in your field with all the education and experience that any employer would want, but errors on your resume will kill your chances to tell an employer about it. Carefully spell-check your resume. If you have errors that could easily be found with a spell-checking program, your message to a potential employer is that you are careless. This simple step is vital before sending off a resume, but it is not enough. Read through your resume carefully. You might have made a mistake the spell checker cannot catch like using send instead of sent.
Ask several people to look at your resume.. One person might see something another did not. Listen to their opinions. If someone thinks a sentence sounds awkward, look at it objectively and see if there is better wording to use. At the same time, it is your resume, so carefully think about all suggestions, and then use the suggestions that fit your personality and style.
2. Pronouns (I or me)
Resumes do not need I or me. These pronouns are understood - when you use them, you are telling an employer that you do not really know how to write a resume. Instead of, "I was responsible for troubleshooting networking malfunctions"; it is accurate in a resume to use, "Troubleshooting networking malfunctions".
3. Not enough white space
Long, run-on sentences are hard to read. Use short, but revealing sentences and leave space between sections it will be much easier to read. Don't try to run your margins all the way out to the edge. When you look at your resume from a distance, it should have some order and organization. You should be able to clearly see where one section ends and another begins. If your resume is confusing to an employer, it may stand to reason that you might just be a confusing employee.
4. Inconsistency
Formatting should be the same throughout your resume. All headings should be in the same font. If one is bold, they all should be bold. The body under each heading should use the same font in each section. If one of your dates is formatted with the year as 2002, then another part of the resume should not use 04. Pick a date style and stick with it.
Stay consistent with the tense of your resume too. If you wrote, "developed IMS support software" in one area of your resume, another should not have 'design and employ data migration process"' unless it is your current job. Another example of mixing tenses would be: "filed monthly reports, inputting data in Excel, managed database." Either use...ing or...ed but don't mix them. Consistency on the job is an important employment quality. Your resume should tell an employer you understand that.
5. Leaving off important information
A resume needs to have addresses of employers, names and phone numbers of the person they can contact that can tell them about you, dates of when you worked there and the details of what you did. It's not OK to say, I don't know their phone number or I don't remember the dates. You need to look it up. When you leave off important information, it says you do not pay attention to details.
6. Downplaying skills
If a resume says "worked on various computer projects"', it doesn't tell anyone very much. The following changes would tell an employer this person had skills and experience: "Member of a team that deployed software for 1000 stations, developed protocol for implementing system-wide troubleshooting database, led a team of three in updating..."
Think about the skills an employer is looking for and spell them out. Don't assume that some things go without saying. A resume does more than tell an employer your job title; it states how well you can express what it is you did.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Pancy_Singh
1. Errors
Typos, spelling errors and grammatical errors are a sure-fire way to send your resume to the shredder. You might be unsurpassed in your field with all the education and experience that any employer would want, but errors on your resume will kill your chances to tell an employer about it. Carefully spell-check your resume. If you have errors that could easily be found with a spell-checking program, your message to a potential employer is that you are careless. This simple step is vital before sending off a resume, but it is not enough. Read through your resume carefully. You might have made a mistake the spell checker cannot catch like using send instead of sent.
Ask several people to look at your resume.. One person might see something another did not. Listen to their opinions. If someone thinks a sentence sounds awkward, look at it objectively and see if there is better wording to use. At the same time, it is your resume, so carefully think about all suggestions, and then use the suggestions that fit your personality and style.
2. Pronouns (I or me)
Resumes do not need I or me. These pronouns are understood - when you use them, you are telling an employer that you do not really know how to write a resume. Instead of, "I was responsible for troubleshooting networking malfunctions"; it is accurate in a resume to use, "Troubleshooting networking malfunctions".
3. Not enough white space
Long, run-on sentences are hard to read. Use short, but revealing sentences and leave space between sections it will be much easier to read. Don't try to run your margins all the way out to the edge. When you look at your resume from a distance, it should have some order and organization. You should be able to clearly see where one section ends and another begins. If your resume is confusing to an employer, it may stand to reason that you might just be a confusing employee.
4. Inconsistency
Formatting should be the same throughout your resume. All headings should be in the same font. If one is bold, they all should be bold. The body under each heading should use the same font in each section. If one of your dates is formatted with the year as 2002, then another part of the resume should not use 04. Pick a date style and stick with it.
Stay consistent with the tense of your resume too. If you wrote, "developed IMS support software" in one area of your resume, another should not have 'design and employ data migration process"' unless it is your current job. Another example of mixing tenses would be: "filed monthly reports, inputting data in Excel, managed database." Either use...ing or...ed but don't mix them. Consistency on the job is an important employment quality. Your resume should tell an employer you understand that.
5. Leaving off important information
A resume needs to have addresses of employers, names and phone numbers of the person they can contact that can tell them about you, dates of when you worked there and the details of what you did. It's not OK to say, I don't know their phone number or I don't remember the dates. You need to look it up. When you leave off important information, it says you do not pay attention to details.
6. Downplaying skills
If a resume says "worked on various computer projects"', it doesn't tell anyone very much. The following changes would tell an employer this person had skills and experience: "Member of a team that deployed software for 1000 stations, developed protocol for implementing system-wide troubleshooting database, led a team of three in updating..."
Think about the skills an employer is looking for and spell them out. Don't assume that some things go without saying. A resume does more than tell an employer your job title; it states how well you can express what it is you did.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Pancy_Singh
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