My little rant on writing résumés

Why am I qualified to talk about this subject? Because in my previous work life, I was a recruiter who spent endless hours combing through, refining, critiquing, enhancing, improving and even in some cases completely revamping the whole look and feel of the documents purporting to be somebody’s life’s work. Now I do it off and on for friends or family. Maybe tomorrow I’ll turn it into my business.

Here are all my disclaimers if you ever need my services:

I am not responsible for the content in your résumé (ie. The juicy bits like what your achievements are). If you don’t add all the good bits, I can’t make it up. What I can do is ask you about your job and make you think about all the stuff that needs to be in there. If you already have the important bits, then we will save some time. Once you have described what you do, only then can I tweak it and possibly make it a better representation of you. And remember, I am not responsible for whether you get the job!

Having seen the résumé s from best of the best and from the worst of the worst, I have assembled my Top 10 Pet Peeves (by no means exhaustive but it’s a start):

1. Too much information. This includes: over-describing a position, personal information, primary school grades, activities that are completely irrelevant to the job, and photographs of yourself in the document or heaven forbid, in a separate document.

2. Handing over the résumé and saying, “Fix this for me”. This is not how it works. This résumé belongs to you, is an extension of you and therefore should always be approved by you. This means, you have to put work into it! Every line in your résumé must be known by you. Even if you didn’t write it personally, make sure you memorize it like you wrote it! It would be embarrassing (not to mention detrimental to you) to sit at an interview in this scenario:

“Say, James, I see that you have led a team of 30 people in the project at XYZ Company. Can you tell me more about that project?”

“Errr, let me see that” as you reach for your résumé, “I’m not exactly sure which project that is. Can I see where that is?”

So, know every line of your résumé like it’s the back of your hand. Don’t get caught in this situation.

3. A big ego attached to the résumé. Sometimes this manifests in the résumé, other times I just have to put up with it over the phone. Hopefully, never face-to-face!

4. Grammar mistakes, I can understand. But spelling mistakes!! Can’t stand those. No excuses. Fix them before the résumé is sent to anybody.

5. Unexplained abbreviations. For instance, I would have no idea that TMI means “Too Much Information” if it is not specified at least once in the résumé. And make that specification the first time it is used.

6. Purposeful vagueness. Get your work dates right. Month and years needed for each position. A good interviewer will notice gaps between jobs and ask you about them. If you have large gaps, get ready to explain. Also, be specific about figures – eg. $3m project sounds better than ‘large project’

7. Heavy focus on responsibilities as opposed to accomplishments. A nice balance would be good.

8. A poorly or fancily formatted résumé. If you don’t use proper bulleting techniques, your résumé will be going to the bottom of the pile. A reader-friendly résumé is a must. The use of unconventional formatting and fonts in a résumé always irks me. Keep it simple. No highlighting and different font colors. No fancy shading or themes to “make your résumé stand out”. Actually, you will stand out. You will stand out as an irritating applicant who defies convention.

9. Using the exact same résumé to apply to different positions. Each position is different. Ergo, your résumé should be tailored to get you an interview for the specific job you’re interested in. Emphasis can be placed appropriately and content can be rearranged to grab the hirer’s interest.

10. Having an OBJECTIVE section at the top of your résumé. That’s just tacky. That’s the lazy person’s way of ‘tailoring’ a résumé. If you must have something like that, call it a Summary or Overview.

Hope this helps someone out there! More updates when I get round to it. In the meantime, contact me for a consultation. Fees negotiable!