10 Items That Make Your Resume an Absolute Disaster

Summary: In today’s post we will discuss 10 things that should never be on your resume whether or not you are applying for a job unless you want it to be a disaster. 

With so much advice out there about how to update or write a resume, some stuff can fall through the cracks. One piece of advice that should resonate with you when writing a resume is that you need to avoid some deadly mistakes. The mistakes we will discuss in this post can cause your resume to be thrown in the trash as soon as it crosses the desk of a recruiter or a hiring manager. We will discuss 10 mistakes that can ruin your resume in this post.

Getting Personal

You must absolutely never get personal on a resume. This includes staying away from mentioning your birthday, including a picture of yourself, mentioning your religion, your sexual orientation, your gender or even your political affiliation. Should you include a photo of yourself on your resume, the rejection rate is 88 percent.

Poor Grammar and Misspelled Words

The Recruitment and Employment Commission claims that 50 percent of all resumes received by recruiting consultants come with spelling errors or grammar mistakes. People between the ages of 21-25 are the biggest culprits of these mistakes and the people in this age group are twice as likely to make the mistakes if they went to college compared to those who did not.

Including Irrelevant Work Experience

Whenever you include work experience that is not relevant to the job description, then your resume will not be one that is kept for a possible job interview.

Display Hobbies and Interests

Hiring managers and recruiters will want to get to know you personally after they hire you, not while reading your resume. This means that you need to keep your hobbies and interests off your resume.

Negativity

When writing your resume, you need to be as positive as possible. Negativity will only hurt the chances of your resume getting noticed or you receiving a phone call about job interviews. Avoid words such as awful, bad, mistake, hate, fault, problem and nothing.

Including References

References will not be needed in the hiring process until the company is ready to offer you a position. Therefore, you do not need to include them on your resume. You can even get ride of the statement, “References available upon request.”

Bending the Truth

People love to add something interesting to their resume, but never go overboard. You likely will get caught if you lie or tell stories on your resume.

Too Much Information

When you include too much information on your resume, it is likely that it will become a novel. One page is perfect for someone right out of college. Two pages is good for an experienced professional. Anything over two pages is way too long.

Being Too Creative

There is nothing wrong with being creative when writing a resume, but you should not go overboard. It still needs to be easy to read and professional.

Jargon, Cliches and Vague Wording Usage

A resume that is heavy on cliches, vague wording and jargon will be throw in the trash almost immediately.