Source: JobsDB

Even professionals with years of experience struggle with writing resumes that stand out from the crowd. This is the reality for most countries around the world today. It’s no longer enough to have a great tertiary education and relevant skills and experience. Presentation, relevance of content, clarity, personalization — these are critical factors commonly overlooked by job applicants which determine the fate of the resume. Are you guilty of the following mistakes? It might be why you’re not getting interviews.

1. No intro statement
This is one of the most commonly ignored elements of a resume — the intro statement. An effective resume should start with a strong and concise intro statement. The statement may focus on what drives you and what you’re passionate about. It should humanize the resume, so that recruiters can relate to you on a deeper level.

2. Information overload
You might have 10 years of experience, but you don’t have to list every detail down. Information overload causes the reader to disconnect and lose interest. Keep the resume simple, concise and relevant to the job you’re applying for. Be honest with yourself. Is it interesting and/or relevant? If not, delete it.

3. Vague achievements
Be as clear and specific as possible when it comes to describing your achievements. Stay away from weak verbs such as “managed” and “coordinated” — these words are too general. Use strong verbs such as “initiated”, “spearheaded”, “supervised”, etc, and wherever possible, use numbers to quantify achievements. For example, stated that you increased sales by x%.

4. Lack of personality
The recruiter is often looking for hints of a candidate’s personality in the resume, besides the usual skills and experience. Apart from your successes and education, what do you want the recruiter to take away from reading your resume?
What is the one thing you want them to associate with you? It might be your attention to detail, artistic flair, entrepreneurial talents, or something else.

5. Irrelevant content
Keeping the resume concise and on point increases your chances of keeping the recruiter interested enough to read through the entire resumes. Minimize your use of technical jargon to be vague and confusing, which causes the reader to tune out and disconnect.
Always look at it from the recruiter’s perspective and focus on the most pertinent information upfront and keep the rest short and sweet.

6. Poor readability
Is your resume full of long, wordy paragraphs? Are you making use of bold and italics formatting to highlight keywords and phrases?
Readability is a key factor in keeping the reader attracted. You need to make the resume as easy and effortless to navigate as possible — the reading experience is just as important as the quality of content when it comes to making a positive impression.

7. Spelling & grammatical errors
Last but not least, always use spell check. There’s nothing more unprofessional than submitting a resume that’s full of spelling and grammatical errors.
If you’re not sufficiently proficient in English, get a friend to help you. You can always explain it during the interview. Your potential employer will appreciate your commitment and efforts, which will surely score you bonus points. Remember, your resume has only one job: to get your foot in the door.