Unnecessary material on your resume can take up valuable space that could be better used for items that can help you land the job, and in certain situations, it can actively reduce your chances of getting hired.
- Before making a choice about whether to move a prospect ahead, hiring managers give resumes a quick scan.
- Extraneous details can clog up your CV and, in certain situations, damage your employment prospects.
1. An objective
It’s already clear that you desire the job because you applied.
The one exception: If you’re in a special circumstance, like switching industries entirely, it could be helpful to add a succinct overview.
2. Unrelated professional experiences
There’s a chance that you were the “king of creating milkshakes” at the restaurant you worked at in high school. But it’s time to clear out all that mess unless you intend to redeem that title.
Nevertheless, as Alyssa Gelbard, the company’s creator and career consultant, notes: Previous employment that might not seem to be immediately relevant to the position at hand may reveal a different dimension, depth, aptitude, or talent that is actually relevant or appropriate.
Including this experience only if it significantly demonstrates extra abilities that are applicable to the job for which you are seeking.
3. Personal details
Do not provide your Social Security number, preferred religion, or marital status.
Even though it may have been customary to include this information in the past, you shouldn’t do so now because it might lead to discrimination.
4. Your full mailing address
A full street address is the first thing that Amanda Augustine, a career expert for TopResume, immediately looks to cut from a resume.
“Nobody needs to have that on their resume anymore, and, to be quite honest, it’s a security concern,” she previously told Business Insider.
5. More than one phone number
Augustine suggests including only one phone number on your resume, ideally your cell phone, so you have control over who answers your incoming phone calls, when, and what the voice mail sounds like.
“Also, you don’t want employers trying to contact you in five different places, because then you have to keep track of that,” she says.
6. Your hobbies
Often times, nobody is concerned.
If it has no bearing on the position you’re seeking for, it can be taking up space on your resume that could be used for other important details.
7. Blatant lies
Blatant lies were a common response when 2,000 hiring managers were questioned about their most memorable resume blunders in a 2015 CareerBuilder poll. A few applicants asserted to be previous CEOs of the organisations they were applying to, Nobel Prize winners, and graduates of nonexistent colleges, among other claims.
These lies may be “misguided attempts to compensate for lacking 100% of the qualities mentioned in the job posting,” according to Rosemary Haefner, former chief HR officer at CareerBuilder.
Nonetheless, Haefner advises applicants to focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses while applying.
8. Too much text
Consider it a “epic fail” if you’re trying to fit everything on one page by using a 0.5-inch margin and an eight-point font, advises J.T. O’Donnell, the creator of the career guidance website Careerealism.com and the author of “Careerealism: The Sensible Way to a Satisfying Career.”
She advises using lots of white space and a margin of no more than 0.8.
Augustine concurs but advises avoiding long passages of text.
Let’s face it: You’re scanning this quickly, skimming through it, and when you reach a lengthy paragraph, your eyes start to glaze over, she adds.
9. Too many bullets
Similar to this, you can overstuff your resume with bullet points, which Augustine refers to as “death by bullets.”
Your eyes will merely glaze over it if everything is bulleted, she claims, which has the same effect as long, dense blocks of text.
Bullets should only be used to emphasise the most crucial information, according to Augustine. She claims that if you bullet everything, then nothing would really stand out because everything is significant.
10. Time off
Gelbard advises against listing any time off for family responsibilities or travel on your résumé. “This information, particularly regarding travel, is okay in other nations, but it is not proper to include that in the body of a resume in the US.”
11. Details that give away your age
According to Catherine Jewell, author of “New Resume, New Career,” it’s time to erase your graduation date if you don’t want to face age discrimination while applying for jobs.
Double spaces after a period are an unexpected method your resume may reveal your age.
12. Inconsistent formatting
According to Augustine, the format of your resume is just as crucial as its substance.
According to her, the optimal format is one that will enable the hiring manager to quickly scan your resume and yet be able to identify your most important qualifications and career objectives.
Choose a format and stay with it. Use the same structure throughout the rest of the resume if you write the day, month, and year for one date.
13. Short-term employment
Avoid including a job on your resume if you only held the position for a short period of time, Gelbard says. You should especially avoid including jobs you were let go from or didn’t like.
14. An email address that is not appropriate
It’s time to choose a new email address if you continue to use an outdated one like [email protected] or [email protected].
It is free and only takes a few minutes.
15. Any unnecessary, obvious words
For example, there’s no reason to put the word “phone” in front of the actual number.
“It’s pretty silly. They know it’s your phone number,” says Amdur. The same rule applies to your email address.
16. Headers, footers, tables, images, charts
While a well-formatted header and footer may look professional and some interesting tables, photos, or charts may increase your credibility, Augustine previously told Business Insider that they also confuse the applicant-tracking systems that organisations use today.
Your resume will get jumbled up by the algorithm, which will then spit out a poorly structured version that might not have your header or charts. Even if you were the best candidate for the job, the hiring manager can no longer get in touch with you for an interview because of this.
17. Your boss’ name
If you don’t want a future employer to contact your supervisor, don’t put their name on your CV. Even then, according to Gelbard, the only time the name of your supervisor should appear on your resume is if the employer is very notable or striking.
18. Company-specific jargon
” Companies often have their own internal names for things like customized software, technologies, and processes that are only known within that organization and not by those who work outside of it,” Gelbard says.
“Be sure to exclude terms on your resume that are known only to one specific organization.”
19. More than 15 years of experience
When you start including jobs from before 2005, you start losing the hiring manager’s interest.
Your most relevant experience should be from the past 15 years, so hiring managers only need to see that, Augustine says.
On the same note, don’t include dates on degrees and certifications that are more than 15 years old.
20. Annoying buzzwords
Stay away from words and phrases like “best of breed,” “go-getter,” “think outside the box,” “synergy,” and “people pleaser.”
Instead, try “achieved,” “managed,” “resolved,” and “launched.”
21. A photo of yourself
