Connor Brooke
I have reviewed over 300 random resumés in the past two weeks and, based upon that sample and my past experience, I can tell you that it is highly likely yours is working against you. Why? Because it contains common errors that detract from your initial impression and your overall professional presentation.
There are two types of resumés — egocentric resumés and committee resumés. The former are written by those who think they know what they are doing and don’t listen to the advice of others. The latter are written by those who listen to others but, in most cases, don’t know enough to select useful advice among what they are given and make revisions based upon random inputs. Which ones are better? It’s hard to say. But what I can say is that the majority of resumés fall far short of the mark and tend to work against their owners.
Even a great resumé will tend to work against you, which is why I recommend my clients withhold giving people their resumés in most situations. As suggested in Chapter 6 of Fast Track Your Job Search (and Career!),
“Strive to meet with contacts and hiring decision makers without sending a resumé in advance. Avoid sending your résumé to anyone unless there is a critical need for it.”
The primary exceptions to my guideline concerns people who are in the direct or indirect decision chain related to current or future job openings — recruiters and hiring managers (or others who have direct influence in the hiring process). They may need to see your resumé in order to consider you for specific current or future positions that need to be filled by someone like you. Ninety percent of the people who ask for your resumé, however, don’t need it and I wouldn’t recommend giving it to them except in unusual situations.
So, anyway, let’s get back to why your resumé is hurting you. My comments are in the context of human beings reviewing it, as opposed to the context of trying to win the impersonal job application and software screening lottery. Here are some of the more notable problems and what human readers prefer instead:
1. It contains mostly responsibilities statements — I want to know specifically what you accomplished while you had responsibilities, not just descriptions of the responsibilities. This leads to the next point….
2. It lacks enough quantifiable results, or has enough of them but not in your more recent jobs — I want to know the numbers associated with your accomplishments (dollars, quantities, percentages, peer rankings, etc.), especially more recent ones.
3. It is weighted down with a lot of preliminary info at the top, such as long bulleted lists of skills and experience or functional skills categories with bullets beneath them — I will turn off if you bombard me and I can’t tell what is important and what is not.
4. It expresses no thought of the future — I need to know what you have done in the past, but I also want to know where you see yourself going in the future (your next objective).
5. It is crammed onto the page, with narrow margins and a small typeface — I want it to be comfortable to read without a magnifying glass and see that you have organizational skills that allow you to fit the most important information onto the page(s).
6. It has typos, inconsistent formatting (indents, fonts, etc.), and other quality flaws — I want to see that you have enough personal initiative to review your work thoroughly and put your best foot forward.
7. It is beyond two pages, which is too long for most people — I will only give your resumé ten seconds for the initial scan and maybe a minute for the second look (if it gets a second look), so less tends to be more.
I review hundreds of resumés each month and repeatedly see these seven errors (and others). Improvements in these areas will definitely help you in your career and job search results, which is what I want for you. Good luck and best wishes!
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Connor Brooke.
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I do have a question for you (and maybe a comment)…
I’ve been in the administrative field for a long time. And it’s been a long time since I’ve had to look for work. It’s tough out there. The salaries are unbelievably low right now and there are thousands of applicants for all positions (I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know).
I hired a company to “help” me with my CV. Took advice from hiring managers and made the changes they suggested (as I am not an expert resumé writer and not the kind of person that likes to boast about myself). Apparently that’s a problem.
I believe that I express myself very well. I’ve got strong skills and assets and would be an asset to a company. My goal is to work for a company that has morals and loyalty to me as an individual because that’s what I give my employer when I work for them. Sadly now a days, many corporations look at the bottom line and leave you feeling like your hard work, many hours of overtime to get things done with no extra remuneration, belief in the company and people you worked with was all just for nothing. Do I sound a bit bitter…yes…because that’s what happened to me. HOWEVER, I still believe in having those morals and that loyalty.
I will now get to my point (sorry I needed to give you a bit of context for some reason).
as I said I have been in the admin field for years. I am aware that I need to make my CV “pop” as someone told me recently. But my problem is this:
I don’t know all the $$ amounts that I save the company or team. Being an admin doesn’t always give you access to the budget or forecasts and end results so to speak. Many executives discuss these within meetings that we are not included in. Many times, that information is for higher management’s eyes and ears. So how can I say “I save x amount of $ doing my job effectively? Isn’t that what I was hired to do? Isn’t it part of the whole team’s effort that made those numbers and not me alone as an individual who was hired to process the paperwork, do budget reconciliation, plan meetings, manage schedules, make travel arrangements and expense reports etc etc etc.
Those ARE some of the things that I have done. Those are the tasks that I was hired to do, and the same tasks that you (generally speaking) are hiring me to do as well.
Don’t you as an employer want to see that I have successfully done my job and acquired all those skills? I’m proud of the work that I’ve done. I’m very proud of all the skills that I acquired through the years. I don’t have a university degree, that is the one thing I wish I would have done. Having said that, I can manage your office just as well regardless.
I want to be hired. I want to work hard for you. I will be dedicated and give you my all because that’s who I am.
But why do I need to paint myself in multicolours, and have flames shooting out of my ears in order for someone to notice me. Why does my hard work not speak for itself, instead of me “changing the wording to make it seem so much more than it is”. Calendaring is calendaring…I can call it time management, I can call it diversified meeting placements and I can call it a pink elephant if you want. But it still remains calendaring. If I were an employer, I’d want to know that she can do these things. I don’t want her to make it seem like more than it is. It leads me to think she’s lying or embellishing because she lacks the experience or confidence. (Am I out in left field or too old school???).
One thing I can say, is that I am a senior administrator. I am not a 20 year old just getting out of school who needs to impress a possible employer so I can gain experience. So what do I do now that I have put in the years, gained the experience, and have proven skills to offer an employer?
I am discouraged, and various “experts” keep giving me contradicting advice on how my resume needs to look, what it needs to say, how it needs to be said, when to send it, when not to. OY VEY!!!!!!
I wish I could send you my CV so you could tell me what you think…but better yet…guide me into how to become the “now” person instead of the “then” person.
signed…discouraged and confused, who just wants to make it in this world.