How to Avoid the Most Common Resume Mistakes at All Costs

According to 73% of job seekers, the process of looking for a job is one of the most stressful events in life. Sending in application after application gets old very quickly, especially when you don’t even get a response.

Your resume might be the reason why you aren’t getting a callback. To better your chance of getting the job you want, avoid these common resume mistakes.

Vague Employment Dates

One of the common resume mistakes is adding vague employment dates to your work history. If you don’t include months in your resume, the hiring consultant will assume you are hiding gaps in your employment.

To avoid this, always include specific dates where you can. If you do have gaps in employment, be honest about it and offer an explanation during the interview process.

Failure to Delete Irrelevant Work Experience

You might feel obligated to include every job you’ve had on your resume, but some of these things will be irrelevant.

For example, you don’t need to include the part-time work you had in college when applying for an IT position.

When you include irrelevant work experience, it comes off as laziness. The interviewer might wonder why you left it in there instead of reworking the resume to fit the job description you are applying for.

Always tailor your resume to fit the career options you want.

Fluffy Job Descriptions

You might not get to the interview process with a resume that has too much fluff. Recruiters don’t like seeing chunks of text on a resume that explain job descriptions using fancy words.

Utilize your job descriptions by turning them into something practical. A recruiter should get the idea of your experience in a few sentences or less.

Including Obvious Skills

No matter your career choices, Microsoft Office is no longer a skill you need on your resume. Employers assume good applicants can work with basic Office suit tasks.

Instead of including obvious skills, use the space to highlight more advanced technical skills. Some that appeal to employers include:

• Adobe Creative Suite
• Mixpanel
• Google Analytics
• Salesforce

Choose skills that will help you stand out from other contenders, but never put a skill on your resume that you don’t actually possess.

Increased Focus on the Design

There are types of jobs where a well-designed resume will come in handy, but this is not often the case. In traditional industries, you should have a simple-to-read layout.

Some applicants will focus too much on trying to do something new with their resumes without realizing that employers see hundreds of resumes per job listing.

Your resume needs to show exactly what an employer is looking for and a complicated design isn’t going to allow that to happen.

Use a resume builder online to help focus your efforts on content while offering a professional template option.

Resume Mistakes to Avoid Like the Plague

These days, getting a job isn’t easy when you have to compete against hundreds of applicants. To have a better chance of getting the job you want, avoid these resume mistakes like the plague.

Don’t use vague dates, delete irrelevant experiences, and take out fluffy job descriptions and obvious skills. Focus your efforts on the content rather than the design.

Use this guide when writing a resume and don’t forget to come back for more blogs like this!