Writing Your Resume – 6 Top DOs and DON’Ts (in random order)
1. Personal information that may cause you grief – i.e. Years/dates of education, GPAs and Hobbies/other interests.
This is a no-win situation for you and Dates and GPAs are discriminatory. If you graduated in 1995 from college – are you too old or too young? The person reviewing/interviewing your resume might be older or younger than you and in his/her mind they might be thinking “Oh my, Jan graduated in 1995, wow, she’s really old, wonder if she’ll be able to deal with me and the culture of our startup company?” Or conversely “Oh my, Jan graduated in 1995, wow, she’s just a kid, wonder if she’ll be able to deal with the structure and culture of this old line company?”
The same is true of GPAs – are you too smart or not smart enough? “Oh my, Jan had a 3.75 GPA, wow she’s really smart and I only had a 2.5 GPA – I’m not going to hire her, I’m intimidated, what if she aces me out of my job!” Or…”Oh my, Jan had a 3.75 GPA, wow, wonder why she didn’t do better. I had a 3.95 – hmmm, maybe she’s not smart enough for us.” Really, these internal conversations are happening within the resume reviewer/interviewer. And it’s not in your favor, either way. Don’t set yourself up for perceptions that don’t need to occur.
Hobbies/Other interests – same as above. You ride horses? I’m scared of horses. You climb mountains? Hmmm, you’re an insurance risk. You write cook books? Will it impact your job? I know – none of this is fair, but it is human nature. I automatically delete all that off a resume (after the candidate and I have discussed it) – I want the recruiters and hiring managers to focus on your work and we want the good stuff in there.
Now, if you do volunteer work, or serve on the board of a non-profit – that’s pertinent information and should be on your resume. There are no negative connotations about that, and shows that you are multidimensional and care about your community.
2. Don’t list your references on your resume.
It’s amazing to me how many people do. You subject yourself to a potential reference check before you’ve been interviewed – that’s not good. You also open up your references to recruiters who add them to their database and potentially call them for the position that you want.
3. Don’t fudge your education. Don’t fudge ANYTHING.
If you have some college coursework, it might be good to put that on your resume, depending on what your coursework was in. And it can potentially be positioned as advantageous, depending on whether or not you’re “in progress” – that’s a discussion I would have with you and we would work it out on a case by case basis. Don’t list a degree you don’t have. When we do the educational verification and your school says you didn’t graduate, it could be an “interesting” discussion and sets you up for negative thoughts about your character.
If you have certifications – i.e. PMP, Microsoft Certified Application Developer (MCAD), Cisco Certified Internet Expert (CCIE) – those should definitely be on your resume, after your college education, or in place of it if you’re not a college grad.
Don’t list your high school education – no matter what. If you have college experience, it’s a given. If you don’t, it calls attention to it.
4. Don’t use multiple type fonts or too many bolds or fancy colors.
We consider it eye candy and it’s very distracting. It makes it hard to read and takes the focus off what you do for a living.
5. Break up big blocks of text.
Resumes get skimmed in a certain order and they are a summary document. You want the information about you to be easily absorbed. You can work with bullet points or small paragraphs if it doesn’t work well in bullet point format. Think in sound bites. It will also help you sort out the relevant and irrelevant information about yourself.
6. DO USE SPELL CHECK!!!
I would shout this from the rooftops and write it across the sky if I could. It would seem to be self-evident, but many people don’t use it. I am a pretty forgiving person, and I will make allowances for you if English is not your first language (though you should have somebody else review your resume who’s a native English speaker). I might even clean it up if it’s not extensive, and resend it to you with the corrections. But generally that’s your job and not the recruiter’s. If your resume is filled with typos and grammatical mistakes, it forms a perception in my mind about you and your attention to detail – and your professionalism which is generally not good.
