Resume Pet Peeves
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
I did an interview with JobRadio.FM on the subject of my pet peeves with resumes.
I started off by telling them, “Do you know the old saying, ‘A broken watch is right twice a day?’ Well, too many people flip the same resume over and over again to every job ad they see as though all the jobs are the same . . . which they obviously aren’t.”
Instead of doing that, minimally create a single paragraph (and preferably more (to be inserted into your base resume that makes the fit obvious to a reader.
After all, everyone is swamped and no one has time to call on a resume that doesn’t clearly make the case that you are qualified for a job.
Instead of leaving things to chance, it is better to insert information into your resume that makes the case and then highlight it in your cover email (a cover email is the body of the email that your resume is attached to; do not use a separate file attached to the email; it will never be opened.
Others spoke of:
1. Lack of detailed information about your job title and what your firm does.
2. The use of table formatting in resume (it makes it extremely difficult to re-format)
3, The use of PDF resumes (same issue plus some applicant tracking systems do not import PDF resumes well)
4. People who don’t spell check and grammar check their resumes (MY COMMENT: Some trade terms will pass through a spell checker for example, for years the word ‘novel’ would go through spell check even though the person meant to type ‘Novell”)
5. Resume objectives that conflict with the role being filled or the work the potential employer does.
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Stupid Resume Mistakes: Your Resume Interferes with the ATS
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