Four More Resume Mistakes You Might Be Making

If you missed Part 1, you can check it out here. But if you’re here and ready, let’s dive in!

Resume Mistake #5: Not prioritizing customization

By now, most of us have moved away from the objective statement - that’s a good thing.

You may or may not be familiar with the more commonly used about section. We’re all familiar with a good about section, right? At the top of your resume, it’s typically a description of you.

I do prefer this approach to the about section - but I think that there is a way that this space can be used more effectively.

I want you to know that this real estate at the top of your resume is so important. If people look at your resume at all, this is what they need to see.

And having the same paragraph here for every application does your resume a huge disservice. It might check the right boxes for some roles, but it can often be - and should be!- customized to really help align your application to the role at hand - and that can make all the difference.

Instead of using a permanent about section, I use a customized Summary of Qualifications. 3-5 bullet points at the top of your resume that can be easily customized for each role.

This does three important things:

• It helps recruiters and hiring managers see your most relevant experience, right away. They won’t need to comb through your resume to see if you’re a qualified candidate. We’re making it clear and easy to see that!

• The process of knowing how to look at all of your experience - and pick out the parts of it that are most compelling to recruiters/hiring managers is not only good practice for your resume - it’s good practice for your candidacy. In other words, writing about your relevant experience helps prepare you to speak about it.

• The SOQ system we teach makes the customization process effective and efficient! We have some templated language that can be recycled while you weave in pieces of the specific qualifications. It’s like a very strategic mad lib for your resume!

I know that the customization process is frustrating for job seekers but I also know this: it’s effective. That’s why we’ve been using it for 6+ years! The other thing is that it doesn’t have to take a ton of time. We create templates or coach our clients to create their own and our clients practice - this becomes a quick editing job rather than an existential crisis.

If you’re one of our clients, we won’t let you not learn how to do this effectively. If you’re not a client and you’re taking a DIY approach, you should check out our Uncomplicate Your Job Search Bundle which includes super helpful instructions and templates on how to do this.

Mistake #6: Underplaying your value

If you are looking for growth opportunities, if you want to convey your value, you must have a strong grasp of what you’ve already done so that we can communicate this effectively to potential employers.

This is why self-reflection and assessment are so critical. It’s where we unpack and dissect your experience to understand your contributions.

If we don’t do a good job of identifying your contributions...we can’t do a strategic job of communicating or positioning them, right?

What I find is that job seekers who feel undervalued by their boss or team often downplay their own contributions. Here’s some of what I hear in this regard:

• We don’t keep track of our data so I can’t speak to the results

• We just launched so I can’t speak to the results

• X and y never came to fruition so I can’t speak to it

• I didn’t play that big of a part so I’m not sure that I should include that

Bring an awareness to where you are minimizing your work and contributions and value. Things don’t have to work out perfectly for them to be valuable and potentially impressive experiences to future employers! Think about what you learned about yourself in this process and how these experiences inform your next steps - this is great content for a cover letter or an interview.

Another example of this is when you want to move into leadership or management but you don’t have management experience. You may have project management experience, hiring experience, you may have supervised interns. If we minimize this, we lose an opportunity to share your work and your important attributes, like your communication skills or influencing skills. 

Mistake #7: Too much space for things that don’t move the needle

I see a lot of resumes that describe their employer with a lot of detail about revenue, size, or industry.

Sometimes it overtakes space that’s available to describe YOU!

If you are someone who takes a couple of lines to describe your current/former employer, I want you to ask yourself about the value of that. Are people not familiar with your employer? Do they need to be? Is that description of your employer taking up space that could be used to better position you by sharing YOUR relevant skills, achievements, and contributions?

It can be helpful to share a brief description of your current employer, but I don’t prefer this at the expense of my client! One way I address this without overthinking it is to remove the description until I’ve upgraded my client’s resume - then, I’ll add a description back in that fits the resume, not the other way around!

Also, hobbies, objective statements, and bullet points that are pulled straight from your job description - not so compelling.

Mistake #8: It’s not easy to read quickly

This point is so boring - but it’s so key. The number of times I see a resume with lines and different fonts and italics and no margins - is...a lot.

Ask yourself, if I were a recruiter, looking to hire for this role, would I be able to see quickly why I should consider this person?

Are you acknowledging their qualifications and sharing yours?

Are you offering concrete examples and metrics when appropriate?

Is there a reader-friendly font size and white space happening?

When it comes to your resume, more is not necessarily more. Sometimes less is more.

We can help you with your resume - and your job search - if you are spinning your wheels on your own. If you want to work directly with our team, visit our Work With Us page to learn more about our services and Request an Assessment.

If you are taking a DIY approach our Uncomplicate Your Job Search Digital Bundle will give you access to our digital resources and webinars to make your resume work for you!