More thoughts about what not to do in resumes
Since I am now (again) at a new company and recruiting heavily, I am seeing hundreds of resumes. What not to do? Here are my observations.
1. Too long.
Not to brag, but I’ve worked professionally for 20 years+ and switched among 8–9 companies, but so far I’ve managed to keep my resume on one page. That is, including my THREE (!) professional degrees. My point is, you can keep it short if you want to. When the hiring managers are screening hundreds of resumes, they don’t have time to read an essay. Keep it short and sweet. Resume is just like advertising, the top lines are premium real estate, so utilize it. Get your key skills out, focus on what matters, and eliminate the rest. Otherwise you’ll lose them in less than 5 seconds and that’s it.
2. A picture of yourself.
Maybe this is a cultural thing, but I really, really don’t care or want to see how you look like. What does it matter? I can look you up on linked in if I want to, and most of the times I don’t. I will interview you, virtually or not, any way. And what is this again? A beauty contest? To think that your picture would impress is just unprofessional and even childish. Focus on what matters. Your skills. Experiences. Achievements. Not your looks.
3. Charts, tables, weird formatting, arrows, anything fuzzy.
Kinda related to the last point, this is a summary of your professional achievements. So keep it as such. Bullets, formatted in clean and organized chronologically manner, are the best, in my personal humble opinion. Any added weird formatting of charts, tables and other stuff just eat up the space and create noise. Refer back to my first point above.
4. Lack of concrete achievements.
Many people would talk about what they worked on, but fail to include concrete results. How many vendors did you manage, and how much was the spend? Did you achieve savings? If so how so and elaborate? These are the key areas that hiring managers focus on. Don’t just talk about tasks. Talk about results. Ultimately, we want to know what you have worked on, what have you achieved, how did you do it, and can you show up here and start kicking ass right away. While I understand the sensitivity around confidentiality (I worked for Apple, after all), there are ways to describe your achievements with specificity without breaking confidentiality. For example, managed x, y and z suppliers achieving $1B+ cost reduction by doing 1, 2 and 3.
5. Last but not least, grammatical errors and lengthy, redundant sentences.
As the proper grammar mafia, sorry I have to harp on this. This is your first, and could be very likely the last, impression. Don’t blow it. Having grammatical mistakes and not being able to describe your professional career in a crisp manner is a big red flag. Like a man on a date with food on his teeth. If English is not your first language (or even if it is, but you can use some help) by all means hire a professional editor. They can help you crystalize a lot of the ideas and be a lot more expressive and succinct. Again check my first bullet : P.
Didn’t mean to be overly critical, but this is how hiring managers like myself think. Hope this helps. Good luck interviewing and scoring that job of your dreams!
