Finding a job can be frustrating. You submit application after application, knowing you have the experience to do the work, yet the phone never rings.
Sometimes the problem isn’t your qualifications. It may be your résumé.
For many employers, your résumé is the first opportunity you have to make an impression—and sometimes the only one. A poorly organized or generic résumé can bury years of valuable experience before a hiring manager ever gets the chance to meet you.
For Riverside County job seekers, that’s worth paying attention to. California Employment Development Department data show a Riverside County labor force of well over one million people. That means you’re participating in a large employment market where presenting your experience clearly matters.
Here are seven résumé mistakes that may be working against you.
1. Using the Same Résumé for Every Job
One résumé may describe your employment history, but that doesn’t mean the exact same résumé should be submitted for every position.
Suppose you’ve spent ten years working in an office. During that time you’ve handled customers, trained employees, prepared reports, maintained records and supervised other workers.
If you’re applying for a supervisory position, your leadership experience should receive greater emphasis. If you’re applying for a customer-service position, your experience dealing with customers becomes more important.
You aren’t changing the truth. You’re emphasizing the experience most relevant to the job you’re pursuing.
Read the job announcement carefully. Look at what the employer is asking for and make sure your résumé clearly shows where your experience matches those needs.
2. Telling Employers What You Did Instead of What You Accomplished
There’s a big difference between responsibilities and accomplishments.
Consider these two statements:
Responsible for handling customer complaints.
And:
Resolved customer concerns while maintaining positive relationships and helping retain dissatisfied customers.
Both may describe the same job, but the second tells an employer something about the value the employee provided.
Whenever possible, quantify accomplishments.
Did you supervise 12 employees? Say so.
Did you process 50 orders a day? Include it.
Did you help reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, increase sales or train new employees?
Those details help transform a résumé from a list of job duties into evidence of what you can contribute.
3. Making the Résumé Difficult to Read
You don’t need an elaborate design to create an effective résumé.
In fact, simpler is often better.
Use clearly defined sections, consistent formatting, readable fonts and enough white space that the page doesn’t look like a wall of text.
Hiring managers shouldn’t have to search for your employment history, education or qualifications.
Be particularly careful with elaborate templates filled with graphics, unusual columns, charts and decorative elements. A résumé should showcase you, not the template you used to create it.
4. Filling It With Meaningless Buzzwords
“Hardworking.”
“Team player.”
“Results-oriented.”
“Motivated professional.”
There’s nothing inherently wrong with those descriptions. The problem is that almost anyone can say them.
Instead of telling an employer you’re hardworking, demonstrate it through your experience.
Rather than writing that you possess “excellent leadership skills,” explain that you trained new employees, supervised a department or coordinated a project.
Show the employer. Don’t simply tell them.
Specific examples are much more persuasive than adjectives.
5. Ignoring Keywords in the Job Posting
Many employers use software to help organize and screen applications. That makes the language used in your résumé increasingly important.
If an employer’s posting repeatedly mentions inventory management and you have inventory-management experience, those words should probably appear naturally in your résumé.
The important word is naturally.
Don’t copy the entire job advertisement or stuff dozens of keywords into the document. Instead, identify the skills, certifications, technologies and experience the employer considers important and accurately describe the ones you possess.
There’s another benefit: even when a human being reads your résumé from beginning to end, you’re making it easier for that person to see that your background matches the position.
6. Leaving Errors in the Final Résumé
A typo probably doesn’t mean you’re incapable of performing a job.
Unfortunately, it can still create that impression.
Misspellings, inconsistent dates, missing words and grammatical errors can make a résumé appear rushed or careless.
Proofread it more than once.
Then walk away from it for a while and read it again.
Better yet, have another person read it. Writers and editors know an uncomfortable truth: after you’ve looked at the same document long enough, you begin seeing what you intended to write rather than what’s actually on the page.
Pay particular attention to your phone number and email address. The world’s greatest résumé won’t help much if an employer can’t reach you.
7. Forgetting That Your Résumé Has One Primary Job
Your résumé doesn’t have to get you hired.
It has to get you the interview.
That’s an important distinction.
You don’t need to squeeze every accomplishment from your entire working life onto two pages. You need to give the employer enough relevant information to think:
I want to talk to this person.
Keep the résumé focused on the position you’re pursuing and the qualifications that make you a legitimate candidate for it.
Once you’re sitting across from the employer—or speaking with them through a video interview—you have the opportunity to tell the rest of your story.
Before You Hit “Submit”
Take five minutes and look at your résumé as though you’ve never seen it before.
Can you immediately tell what this person does?
Are the most important qualifications easy to find?
Does the résumé explain accomplishments rather than simply listing responsibilities?
Does it contain information relevant to the job?
Is everything accurate?
And perhaps most importantly: Would this résumé make you want to meet the person behind it?
If the answer is no, don’t assume you aren’t qualified for the job.
It may simply be time to rewrite the résumé.