A resume is the first thing that gives the employer a picture of who you are as an individual. While it is meant to be a professional document, the elements you cover and the manner in which you cover them speaks volumes about your attributes. The first step of career management is to manage this kind of perception effectively. It can be done by being aware of the most common mistakes we make in our resumes and proactively checking for those.
Here are the 8 most common gaps we leave but should not.
- Absence of a summary or a good quality one – Many people forget to add a summary in their resumes. They simply start listing down their work experience or educational qualifications without any preamble. A summary is useful for a reader to know your entire background with an quick glance.
- Presence of typos/grammatical errors – Reviewing your resume for typological errors or grammatical ones is a crucial aspect. Missing out on that step is non-negotiable.
- Absence of information on achievements – Your role and responsibilities are what you were hired to do. But your achievements are what made you stand out. Forgetting to cover those can have an impact on your career.
- Vague descriptions – A vague or unclear description of what you did in your previous roles can be very
annoying for the resume reviewer. He or she needs to be able to assess your resume immediately to know if it is a fitment. With vague descriptions that is not possible. - Too much description – Individuals love to talk about their work. However, the emphasis is on talk, which means sharing it when you meet verbally and are asked. Making an unnecessarily long resume makes the reviewer get bored while going through it and discarding it immediately.
- Unethical information – You should always be transparent and true in your resume. Many individuals make the mistake of putting in information which is incorrect or not true.
- Missing out key data – Never miss out on mentioning key elements such as employer names, experience duration, educational qualification year and so on. These seem like minor aspects but they reflect your professionalism to the company that is reviewing your potential.
- Unclear objective – Having an objective mentioned which is not clear or purposeful is a big gap. The reader gets the impression of it being a reflection of you as a vague person.
These are the major gaps or mistakes that you should avoid. Always review your resume for these before sending it out.
