If you are working on your resume — otherwise known as a CV or “Curriculum Vitae” — it is important to suss out what should never be included, avoid common job search mistakes. With this info at your disposal, you can put together the most effective summary of your work history and skills moving forward. Here’s what you need to know:
1 – Don’t Offer Irrelevant Personal Details
The personal details you need to include should be sparse. Focus more on your skills and work history. Unless you are otherwise directed, you should leave out the likes of social media links or photos. While you don’t want a boring CV, it is best to aim for professionalism upfront.
The key to letting your individual traits shine through is to relay how your interests and history pertain to the job. If you’re going to be working in fields such as art, sports, or even charity, it’s okay to list relevant details about how your personal experience and soft skills will help you excel in the position you are applying for.
2 – Don’t Bury The Important Details
In reality, your CV will likely be looked at only briefly at first. As such, it’s crucial to make sure all the most important aspects of your history stand out. It should be immediately clear to any job recruiter why you are a solid candidate for the job. Don’t be afraid to list crucial achievements through confident and to-the-point language.
3 – Don’t Submit Without Checking Typos And Grammar
One of the most common mistakes found in resumes is a litany of typos or spelling errors. You should check and double check to make sure that everything reads well. Proper grammar is a must. Just don’t go so far with your writing that it all sounds overly clinical.
4 – Don’t Leave Unexplained Employment Gaps
If you have unexplained gaps in your employment history, it can raise suspicion. There’s no harm in briefly accounting for the time you spent between certain jobs. Anything that makes you look less qualified should obviously be avoided.
5 – Don’t Leave Misleading Info
If you leave any information that aims to mislead a recruiter however, it will certainly come back to bite you. Here’s what you need to avoid:
* Embellished qualifications
* Exaggerated job titles
* Overconfidence and boastfulness over your achievements
Any instance of truth bending will always be found out. Recruiters are very diligent about looking into your background. If something doesn’t add up, the job will never be yours in the first place.
6 – Don’t Be Long-winded
It is best to keep your CV as concise as possible. Many resume experts suggest summarizing everything on a single page, barring your cover letter. Focus most on your recent experience and which skills will make you suited for the job at hand. There’s no need to dive deep into experiences that have no bearing on what you will be doing in the position you’re applying for.
You should be sure to follow this when listing any qualification, even your history outside of work. For instance, you wouldn’t go into extracurricular activities you engaged in at school if you haven’t kept up with them in recent years. Look over every detail you have listed and make sure to convey it in as few words as possible, and be absolutely certain that everything seems tailored to what you are going to be doing on the job should you be hired.
7 – Don’t Leave Bad Formatting
These days, most resumes are read on computer monitors. As such, you’ll likely be submitting PDF or documents drafted in the likes of Microsoft Word. It is crucial that you format your files as neatly as possible so that they are both visually pleasing and able to be read easily.
Use simple fonts like Arial at size 11 or 12. Use bold, italics, and different colors as sparingly as you can, and shy away from borders, boxes, and other flowery formatting. If you try submitting a document that you draft in one version of a word processing program and it is opened in another, all of your formatting will be gone. As such, PDF files are the way to go unless you have to utilize a web form. If the latter situation arises, it further illustrates why you should keep everything as simple and clean as possible to avoid a jumbled mess on the recruiter’s end.
