9 Resume Mistakes To Avoid

What is the one thing that can impress an HR team to ask you to come for an interview? A resume, right? Yet many people don’t pay much attention to the same. If you are wondering why your job applications have not been yielding positive results, take a look at your resume.

Yes, the culprit in most cases is this piece of paper that has all your skills and experiences listed. The lack of job options is not because your skills are not great or so on. So, before you jump to conclusions, and blame yourself for not being good enough, show your resume to some expert.

They will let you know that there are quite a few mistakes here and there which comes off negatively when an HR sees them. A recruiter looks at your resume for seven seconds, and if they don’t find something impressive, they won’t bother to look ahead. Use Canva resume maker to create the best and most professional resume ever.

Thus, creating the perfect resume is important, and not making silly mistakes. In this article, we will explain what mistakes are common in most resumes, and how to avoid them.

Let’s begin.

Mistake 1: Grammatical And Spelling Errors

It is the silliest mistake anyone can make. So, before you send out your resume, read every line twice. Make sure it is grammatically right and has no spelling errors. If you don’t fix these errors, you are giving out a very bad impression on the recruiters. So, print out the resume and read every line and make sure there are no silly mistakes. You can even take help from online tools like Grammarly for the same.

Mistake 2: Neglecting The Importance Of Formatting

Not paying attention to the formatting of the resume is also a big mistake. Here are some points to remember:

• Don’t overuse bullets.
• Use 2 fonts- one for headline and other for the paragraph. Use Arial or Calibri or Times New Roman.
• Proper spacing is important.
• Use subheading where necessary.

Mistake 3: Trying To Create One Resume For All Job Posts

Every job is different, so don’t think that your resume is one-size-fits-all. You need to change your objective and mention the skill that the recruiter is looking for while sending it out. Cater the resume as per the job posting for better results.

So, don’t write the cliche objective line, ‘Looking forward to working with your team, and adding value to it’. No one wants to read that. Instead, write about your skills which justifies the skills that the recruiter is looking for.

Mistake 4: Going Overboard Or Underboard With Your Details

We know that the resume should be one or two pages maximum. But it doesn’t mean that you can skip relevant details. If you have more experience than some people, you need to add those details, and not skip them. Use bullet points and concise sentences to define your skills and accomplishment. Going underboard with this can cost you that interview.

Also, this doesn’t mean that you can write a five- or six-page long resume. Include all your skills, but as we said to keep them concise.

Mistake 5: Using Too Many Keywords

Buzzwords or keywords like a team leader or helped with people’s morale doesn’t hold much value anymore. It is because people use them too much that sometimes the resume looks spammy. Even if you are trying to ensure that resume scanner software picks it up by using keywords, limit their use.

Instead of these words, try explaining why these buzzwords define you. For instance, instead of a team leader, write ‘led a team of five-member to design new software, which received good numbers.

Mistake 6: Not Talking About Accomplishments

A resume is not the place to list your skills or duties about what you have done in your previous jobs. Everyone attends meetings or increases their sales number. But a recruiter is not interested in that. They want to know how you increase the sales number or bring in more traffic? So, tell them that, don’t list your duties, talk about your accomplishments, and how you achieved them.

Mistake 7: Not Updating Your Resume

Lastly, this is another common mistake that quite a few people make. If you are looking to switch your job, you cannot send your old resume without a few tweaks. Whatever the scenario is make sure that you check your resume first for mistakes and check if the details are correct and updated.

For instance, you should not send out a resume with an old phone number or email address. It would be bad, so check for the same. Also, on a similar note, ensure that your email address is professional and nothing like hotprincess@gmail.com.

Mistake 8: Writing Outdated Information

You need to be in touch with today’s writing standard when it comes to creating a resume. There are tons of things that people preferred in their resume years back, which they don’t want to now. So, writing about your marital status or your age or your hobbies. A recruiter does not want to read about all this, they want to know about your skills and achievements.
Also, such types of things can lead to discrimination, so unless the job listing asks for these details, don’t mention it in your resume.

Mistake 9: Not Using Action Verbs

Remember you are writing this resume to show to the recruiter why you are the right person for this job. That won’t happen with you using words like ‘team leader’ or ‘responsible for’. Instead, write action verbs as they are appealing like:

• Increased sales by 50%.
• Found new methods to increase organic search by 20%.

Resumes are crucial for landing the correct job as they tell the recruiters exactly what they are looking for. When you create the resume keeping the skill set required in mind, you have a better chance. So, take your time and avoid these mistakes for creating the perfect resume ever.