6 Dumb Things People Do When Submitting Their Resume

6 Dumb Things People Do When Submitting Their Resume | No BS Job Search Advice

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

There are a thousand and one dumb things people do to sabotage themselves and their job search. Here a few of the most egregious mistakes people make.

1. Stupid file names for their resume.  I received a resume this week from a technology executive who should have known better. He has a good background but named his resume file some like, “His Name cut and paste August 2009.”

Why would you ever include the expression “cut and paste” as part of the file name for any document, even if it is true?  It just tells the reader that you threw something together quickly. Is that the message you want to convey to an employer or recruiter you want to be impressed by you?

2. Including a cover letter as a separate attachment. No one opens a cover letter file because it is a waste of time. Why? Because most people don’t know how to write a good cover letter, so why bother?

It is far better to write what you might consider a cover letter in the message are of your email, instead of doing that. Don’t do the kind of addressing and salutation you might if you were writing a formal business letter. Use the space to make the case for how your experience fits what they are looking for.

3. Embedding your name, address and contact information as an embedded header at the top of your resume. This one is a subtle one and would require you to understand how corporations and recruiters work.

When organizations and recruiters import data about you into their systems, they don’t manually type your information into their systems. They use parsing software to read it and populate fields. With many types of this software, embedded headers will interfere with the software doing that and your information having to be manually imported.

Who has time for that? The result is you will miss out on opportunities.

4. Mass emailing your resume in the “TO:” field of your email. Why would you want to tell people that you’ve emailed your resume to 165 employers and recruiting firms?

5. Not spell checking your resume. I understand that certain words will go through a spelling checker even though they might be misused.

For example, for years, the words, “NOVEL” would pass through a spell checker even though the intended word was, “Novell.” Visually check any professional term carefully to ensure that your resume does not have misusages or misspellings.

6. Submitting the Same Resume Over and Over Again to Every Job as though your one resume will make the case for every job you apply for.   Everyone knows the expression, “The broken watch is right twice a day.” Yet people violate that simple true statement by emailing the same resume over and over again to every job they apply for as though every job is identical.

Tailored resumes help people receive good results. Flipping the same resume repeatedly like burgers at a fast-food restaurant will give you poor results.

Isn’t showing care when you submit your resume worthwhile?