10 Items to Banish from Your Resume
What You Don’t Include on Your Resume is as Important as What You Do
The purpose of a resume is to get a response. You are sending your resume into the universe to get a reply from the recipient via a phone call, an email, or snail mail regarding a position that interests you. Sometimes what you include on your resume can hurt your chances of getting a response. While there are exceptions to everything, here’s a look at 10 things to leave off of your resume.
A Blank Spot Where Your Objective Ought to Be
A resume needs an objective. The objective tells the reader either a specific job or area of expertise you want to pursue or it explains to the recipient that you want to share your skills and experiences somehow, in some way, at his/her company. Without an objective, you are forcing your reader to try to guess the position best suited for you. You’re leaving it up to the Human Resources Hiring Manager to try to figure out how your life’s experiences, education, and skills can best fit in and meet the needs of the company! Unless you have done the exact same job your whole professional life, and want to continue doing that exact same job, then you must include an objective to help steer the reader’s thoughts toward the role you want. Don’t leave it up to the Director of HR to read through your resume and all your different jobs and roles and try to discern the job you want today.
Now with that out of the way, how should the objective be worded? For starters, here’s what not to include in the objective:
- the type of company at which you want to work
- a chance for you to hone your skills
- the opportunity for you to gain more experience, and
- the ability for you to move up in the company
Here’s an example of a poorly-written objective: To obtain a position at a Fortune 500 company where I can gain more experience toward my goal of becoming a CEO.
The Blank Spaces Where Your Short-term Jobs Should Be
Unless you got fired (for a legitimate reason) from a great position after being employed for a short period of time (less than 6 months), you need to include that experience on your resume. If you traveled to Italy for 5 months with a researcher to document and photograph Catholic churches, that needs to be on your resume (if you are not sure how to make that unique experience fit into the role to which you are applying, hire a professional resume writer to help you.) Now more than ever lots of folks embrace the opportunity to garner experience via short-term, seasonal, or once-in-a-blue-moon-awesome gigs. Having that good experience on your resume will help you, and it’s much more impressive than saying you were just “looking for a job” for the past 6 months.
All That Blank, Boring Space Where a Creative Format Can Spring to Life
While you don’t want to go overboard in your resume’s creative design, you do want to have more than just words all in the same font size. Making your section headers bigger and bold adds to the design and makes it easier for the reader to find the different areas on your resume. An established, professional resume writing service can develop a layout and design specific to your experiences, skills, and field. Your resume format should not look like it came off a template. If you peruse different resume-writing websites and find yourself looking at all the same “samples” of layouts on all of them, that ought to be a red flag! You’re not like anyone else and your resume should not look or read like everyone else’s.
Non-descriptive Words
Is that an oxymoron? Not everyone has people skills and the ability to listen well. Some folks are awesome at maneuvering their way through social media trends, while others don’t own a cell phone. Your particular skills ~ whether it’s your ability to inspire others as you lead-by-example or your astute attention to detail ~ need to be included on your resume. You are your own unique person. There is no one else in the universe with your goals, your experiences, your dreams, and your talents. Don’t you think that ought to shine through in the resume that you are sending to others about you?
The Years of Your Education
If the job to which you are applying requires a high school diploma, state that you have one (if you do). “High school graduate” is all you need to include (even if you “graduated” earning your GED). If you’ve gone on to college – even for one semester, you don’t need to include high school because the only way you can get into college is with your GED or high school diploma (write: ABC UNIVERSITY undergraduate coursework) Whether you graduated from college this year or 20 years ago, don’t include the dates. They can hurt you. You don’t know if the reader might think you aren’t up on the latest advances in your field or if you are a newbie with no real-world experience and only recent book knowledge. When you get that phone call from the HR Manager, you can tell him/her the year you graduated, if asked.
The Thought of Not Ever Having More Than 2 Pages
Some applicants have so much amazing, exceptional, and relevant experience, education, and talent that it can’t possibly fit on just 2 pages. (Well, it can’t fit on 2 pages and still be engaging and easy to read!) Banish that “must be no more than 2 pages” disclaimer from your head! Everyone is different. While you certainly shouldn’t add fluff and mumble-jumble simply to make your resume longer, you should not use smaller font or leave pertinent info off JUST to force your resume to fit on two pages. That’s ridiculous! If you want to earn more money than you are currently earning, your resume must show that your new salary requirements warrant that type of position – you often can’t do that in just 2 pages.
The List of Classes You Took in College
Even if you think you have nothing else to put on your resume except the college classes from your major area of study, still don’t include them. They make your resume scream “I’ll do anything” and won’t land you an interview with a great company. Instead, secure the help of a professional writing service so that those seemingly-insignificant college and real-world summer experiences can be included on your resume in an appropriate and effective way. You’ve just spent thousands and thousands of dollars on your formal education, don’t skimp now on your resume presentation! Hire a professional to help demonstrate how you are a viable candidate.
A Job Where You (Rightfully) Got Fired (or Maybe Not)
This one’s tricky. If you worked for 25 years at a company and then the boss found out you were having an affair with his wife for 24 of those years, what do you write on your resume? What if you have been with a company for 5 years, earned “Employee of the Month” every month, and got fired for stealing beer out of the cooler? How do you possibly handle these situations? Do those years of experience just instantly disappear from your life? This is where the expertise of an established, professional resume writer can help you.
Your Salary
Leave this one off your cover letter as well. While you may have been earning $50,000 last year, perhaps your job really warrants a salary of $75,000. What you are earning does not always reflect what you are qualified to earn. If a company refuses to interview you because you don’t include this information on your resume or in your cover letter, that’s fine. You don’t want to work for them anyway since they are only looking for the least expensive candidate and not the most qualified.
Months
Don’t be anal or paranoid. You don’t need to “prove” you’ve never gone without a job since you were 12. Don’t include you left a job in April and started another one in April – just include the years OR the number of years if there is a gap somewhere. Besides, should you find yourself unemployed and between jobs, embrace that time to catch your breath and re-connect with your kids, your dogs, your family, and your friends. If you got let go today, you don’t need to start a new job tomorrow. Your job does not define you.
While there are exceptions to these 10 (of many) things not to include on your resume, the important point to remember is the purpose of sending your resume to strangers – to get noticed, called, and contacted to see if you really want to work for them anyway. It’s not to be offered the job; it’s to be given the opportunity to learn more about the position, the corporate culture, and the responsibilities of the position and to then decide if it seems like a great place for you to spend so many hours of your life.
If you want to send out the absolute best presentation of yourself, we can help you accomplish that. For readers of this blog, contact us at writers with spark at gmail dot com and write TEN THINGS in the subject line for an instant 20% discount on any of our products and services.
