The Carlton Connection

Correct These Five Resume Mistakes Before Applying!

If you’re a job seeker, chances are you’ve spent many hours perfecting your resume to make sure it “sells” you as a candidate. However, despite the significant time and attention you may have spent on the resume-building process, there are many mistakes even the most detail-oriented candidates make.

Let’s go through five of the most common resume errors, and how you can avoid them.

1. Failing to Include Keywords

If you’re developing your resume with no specific jobs in mind, you’re already putting yourself at a disadvantage. With hundreds – if not thousands – of candidates in applicant pools, companies have begun screening resumes through computerized systems to filter through candidates. It’s imperative that you screen relevant job postings and make sure your resume incorporates the keywords and phrases associated with the types of jobs you’re seeking. For example, if you’re looking for a sales job, you’ll likely want to include phrases like “customer service,” “account management” and “lead generation.” Ideally, you’ll want to tailor or modify your resume for each job application.

2. Including Too Much Information

Your resume should be a comprehensive document that includes your education, employment history and skills without bombarding the reader with an overabundance of information. In terms of length, the ideal resume is no more than one to two pages and formatted in bullets or short paragraphs for easier reading. If you find that your resume is too long, be sure to remove outdated or obsolete information, such as irrelevant college activities or temp jobs from several years ago.

3. Poor Job Descriptions

Your employment history should be written in a way that clearly and concisely articulates your experience and accomplishments. Job descriptions that are too wordy or fail to show how you’ve made an impact in previous roles will prove to be ineffective. In developing your job descriptions, write active statements that describe how your skills and achievements added value to your past employers.

4. Not Including Metrics

Adding metrics to your resume will quantify your accomplishments and highlight your abilities in the eyes of the reader. For example, including a statistic about the percentage of sales generated or the number of people you trained per year, can enhance your employment history and provide evidence to support your claims.

5. Being Too Modest

If you truly want to sell yourself as a rock-star candidate, you must engage in a certain level of self-promotion. Whether it’s listing awards or recognitions or noting a time in which you made a positive contribution within an organization, it’s critical that your resume embodies all your accomplishments.

How Important is a Strong Resume?

Remember, your resume is what will ultimately land you an interview. Being proactive about preventing the common resume errors above will allow you to effectively showcase your qualifications to potential employers and shine among thousands of other applicants.

Is your resume ready for your job search? If so, start looking for your next professional opportunity and see if Carlton Staffing has the right job for you.

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One response to “Correct These Five Resume Mistakes Before Applying!”

  1. Useful post, It’s best to learn from other’s mistakes than to feel the urge to commit one by oneself & then think of learning. I think we’ve all made some of these mistakes to some degree or another. Glad to see that you have shared these mistakes here.

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