It’s getting to be the end of the year in an improving economy, so I bet a lot of us, experienced employees and newbies to the job market are getting prepared to pound the pavements.
Resumes—and cover letters, as you will read—are still a necessity, but most of us, I am bold to say, don’t do that great a job with them. And that includes folks who graduated from party school Chico State (“Six of the four best years of my life”), Wharton, or Virgina Tech (my personal fave).
Robin Ryan, a career counselor and the author of Winning Resumes and Winning Cover Letters has catalogued some of the resume errors that make her wince in an article entitled “Resume Mistakes Can Cost you the Job.” (By the way, I heartily recommend Net-Temps, the site where this article was posted. Great advice there for both the mighty and the low.)
Here’s some food for thought. Pay attention, because the average resume get about 15 seconds of attention:
- Lying ‒ a bad idea and one way to get your butt out the door faster than you’d want. You generally get caught and, as Ms. Ryan points out, “inflating your qualifications into fabrications is NOT the same as using good self-marketing…”
- A dearth of accomplishments ‒ Some of us may not think we’ve done that much, but we have done more than we give ourselves credit for. Think. Scrape the corners of your career for “specific facts noting demonstrated skills and past accomplishments achieved.” Don’t give up until you’ve come up with a couple. If you’re having a problem, ask a friend or your mom.
- Ad infinitum nauseum ‒ It’s disgusting, I know. You’re a Stanford MBA. You’re a multi-talented serial entrepreneur, but that doesn’t mean folks want to read five pages of detail about your wonderfulness. As one HR director put it, “More is not better.” Keep it to one page.
- Proofread ‒ Yep. It’s a humble skill, and as copywriter and editor, I can tell you that it’s indispensable. Ms. Ryan notes that “Employers felt typographic errors reflect the poor quality of work they can expect from you.” Oh, skip the micro-type, too.
- Cover letter ‒ A necessary pain in the butt. Ms. Ryan notes that employers surveyed responded that “cover letter are very influential and can snag an interview all by themselves.” Broadcast resumes, without cover letters—and I‘ve been guilty of this myself—go nowhere.
This is a great time to get your act together for the upcoming year. Please feel free to let me know about your tips and hints.
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