We all know a resume is necessary to getting hired, but just how important is it?
Your resume does so much more than get you hired. It is the first impression at your dream job, the conversation starter in an interview, the tool that carries all your professional accomplishments and acolades. Even though we all know our resume holds value, the contents of it often become an afterthought, especially as we move further and further along in our careers.
Here are some common mistakes we see on candidate resumes, with tips from our recruiters on how to fix them to make your resume shine for potential employers:
Contact information is hard to find
Resume reads as just a list of your previous jobs
Career accomplishments are not listed, just job responsibilites
Grammatical error
Formatting is not easy to follow or consistent
Contact information is hard to find
Your contact information should be the header of the resume and easily readable. This is the information that employers will use to reach out to you, make sure it is eye-catching and correct.
Resume reads as a list of your previous jobs
Keeping an ongoing list of previous jobs and duties is a great place to start when formatting a resume, but should never be your final submission. Make sure your resume highlights your work while being uniquely crafted towards the position you want.
Career accomplishments are not the focus, only job responsibilites listed
Employers generally know what responsibilities are included with certain job titles, what they are looking for is how you stood out in the role, quantifiable achievements you met, and the value add you brought to the position.
Grammatical errors
Big or small, these errors can be the difference in you getting the job or not. Take it a step further than the automated grammar check, have another person read over your resume. There are often errors our own eyes will miss after reading the same thing over and over again. Do yourself a favor and have a friend or one of our recruiters read it over for correctness and feedback.
Formatting is not easy to follow or consistent
Make sure your resume is formatted to highlight your skills while fitting within industrystandards and not pieced together from different documents. This will make your resume look sloppy and be a turn off to hiring managers.
Ready to update your resume, but not sure where to start? Reach out to one of our recruiters to chat about using our affordable and easy to use resume builder service
We love to hear feedback! Comment below if you've found these tips helpful or with any resume advice you’ve found useful throughout your career.