So, you are applying for a summer or semester abroad in your university’s exchange program. Or maybe you are applying for a summer internship. Perhaps you are about to graduate, and you are applying to entry-level job positions. Either way, you are going to need to create a resume.
Resumes are the first step in any recruitment or selection process to see if you are a good candidate. This is the actual first impression, your elevator pitch, not the 10-minute interview. You have to make a good impression, or you will end up in the trash… literally, your resume will become scrap paper at best.
Do not worry, we are here to help by listing 6 things you should never do when creating your resume.
Make sure to only include relevant education, skills, and experiences.
Allowing for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors
Whether you are applying to an academic program or a job, you cannot allow any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors to appear in your resume. It makes you seem unprofessional, careless, lazy, and uninterested. Not double-checking for mistakes tells the recruiter you do not care. It is as simple as that.
Sloppy formatting and fonts
Recruiters spend hours reading through resumes. This means they do not have the energy to read through a resume with an 8 pt size Comic Sans font. The situation becomes even worse when the information is scrambled around, with your contact info as a watermark, or your “hobbies” at the top.
It makes you seem unprofessional, careless, lazy, and uninterested.
Making it too short or too long
If you are a college freshman, and you probably do not have a lot of professional experience, but this does not mean just writing your name, major and contact info. Use the space to describe who you are, what activities you are into – relevant to the opportunity- and previous academic experience. If you are a senior, you are not the first person to work while studying, so do not hand in a 3+ page document, Obama’s resume is shorter.
Not tailoring it to the specific opportunity
Resumes are meant to be customized to each opportunity you apply to. The tasks you completed in a job position can be helpful for some vacancies or detrimental to others, so you are meant to tailor this information. Do not make it too general or send something that is irrelevant. Once again, this tells the recruiter that you did not read the job description and you do not care about them.
Filling your skills section with soft skills & buzzwords
Let me guess, you are about to write that you are a proactive, responsible individual with leadership and communication skills; an excellent team worker, with great time management, problem-solving, and negotiation abilities -all of that- in your skills section. No, no, and no. Skills sections are for you to let the recruiter know if you can code, if you can design, handle photoshop, etc. Also, those buzzwords are “turnoffs”, show me in your job descriptions, do not tell me.
Supervisors, References, Reasons for leaving and Pay
For the love of jobs please do not tell me who supervised you, why did you leave your last job (much less if you tell me you hated your boss), or your salary history. There is a reason there is a reference document separate from your resume, and we discuss salary and reasons for leaving in an interview.
Remember, this is your intro, the recruiter does not need every single detail right now.
Other things to check before you submit your resume are your email, social media profiles, education, skills, experience, and objective section. Pretty much double-check the whole thing. Make sure you are using a professional email, and that you are not including
irrelevant social media profiles. Make sure you are only including relevant education, skills, and experiences, and that you are not including your high school education. Do not include your age, gender, or ethnicity either. Last but not least, if you decide to write an objective, make it clear, specific, and tailored to the job position.
*With information from Indeed, Quora, The Balance Careers, Big Interview, and Top Resume.
