Remove These Ten Things From Your Resume

Takibg college englush proved to be helpful. I had to redo my resume as part of our course. It had to be brief. No unnecessary info.

great thanks. Why they are asking age in some applications??

Thank you for the tip. Very helpful.

Good information.

thanks

True thank you for this tip is very good

Thank you for this information. My resume is 3 pages long....I have a lot I

I like knowing the dos and don'ts for resumes. As years go by, things change and employers are requiring less information on documents. It will help me prepare for the career I am striving for.

@Kenneth thanks for your comment. Maybe you are right that it's not what you know but who you know. In that case, you should be using your contacts to get that next great job. That's what it's all about after all. Networking. The bottom line is that ATS is not going away any time soon. So, if you are seeking a new position, you have to play by the current rules. @Melanie you could add a line to your resume that indicates that other work history/experience is available upon request. You could add a sentence or two in your cover letter, too, that indicates what other type of work you have performed. If you have to fill in an online application, however, you are kind of stuck adding everything. I think that stinks, too, but, if employers ask for it, you are going to have to provide it whether it's relevant or not. The bottom line is that your resume and cover letter are going to be put through an applicant software that is going to score it based upon preset criteria. If you do not score high enough, your resume and cover letter will either be deleted or moved to the company's job bank. Yes the world has changed and we have to change with it if we wish to be hired.

I agreed..

The one thing that I found is a problem for me is when I put relevant information about jobs. In other words, if I am applying for a receptionist job and I only put the times I work as a receptionist, there are huge employment gaps on my resume. That always puts a red flag for employers for some reason.

Most Employers have a company POLICY to NOT provide ANY opinion on any employ because of legal reasons

Part of the problem is that most our so called professional resumes would be 9 pages long !

Very excellent advice! Concise and clear is good!

this is all BS, resumes submitted by the thousands over the Internet and resume scanning programs that look for key words and reject your resume out of hand if it doesn't contain a certain number of key words. Employers may never see the best candidates resumes, just like everything else in the this generation they want it fast and in cliff notes because it takes to long to read the whole resume. You say don't include experience that isn't relevant but then you have to explain work gaps because every electronic application today wants your employment history with no gaps. Like someone else said, they can go to social media, do background checks without your knowledge, if you say that's not legal, guess what?, there are tons of software out there just for that and someone is buying that software. They won't admit it, but they discriminate for age, sex, race, they way you look, where you live and any variety of past mistakes. We live in a world with no privacy where everyone talks about equality but secretly discriminate because it's not politically correct to do so. The truth is there are not many "good" jobs out there, most have bad bosses or bad conditions, bad hours, bad coworkers, so the most desired jobs go to the people that have the hook up. Just like the old saying it's not what you know, it's who you know.

Thanks for the great comments. Unfortunately @Yvonne that seems to be the way that employers get around the "age" question is by asking for the year you graduated. Sadly you have no choice but to fill it in. @Eliot your response is assuming that we graduate from high school and go directly to college. Many of us, like me, received their higher education later in life so the GPA doesn't matter so much for me. Getting a 3.98 out of 4.0 didn't open doors for me. So use caution when you are talking about GPA's. If the posting specifically asks for college and GPA, then you include it. If it asks for it but you don't include it because, like @Dawn mentioned, it might be low, then your application will be thrown out because you didn't follow directions. Catch22 here. Resumes should be short in length and, the rule of thumb today, is to only include the last 10 years of your work experience. Now I know this isn't always possible but, if you can, cut it down. And remember - keywords are king. You need to include keywords from the posting in both your resume and cover letter. Without those, the ATS will score your application too low to be considered for review by human eyes. Best of luck to all of you.

You say don't put the yr you graduated but this is info is a must in order to apply for job. What do you do?

if you are a new grad, or just a few years out of school, you should absolutely include your GPA. Without meaningful work experience, that's all employers have to go on. I have hiring managers who will not even consider recent grad resumes without GPAs on them. The fact that you have a degree is NOT good enough if you graduated with a 2.1

Page length does not matter as nearly all resumes are submitted in electronic form

Very good and well put

I agreed

I'm happy to see an expert acknowledging that some resumes should be longer than a page. My resume is four pages long. There is no fluff, irrelevant information or repetition (similar experience factors are presented as specific projects/accomplishments). Not once has it been suggested by an employer or recruiter that my resume was too long. But, why not put a GPA there, if it's worth bragging about? For a just out of college job it may do you more harm than good, unless it's pretty close to 4.0+. But, if you have several years of experience, indicating a 3.4 GPA may help tell an employer you were productive and mature at a relatively early age, although your GPA would not be the reason to eliminate you versus one with a 3.7. Of course, 10 years down the road from graduation it shouldn't have as much relevance. Also, I look at fluff words and the opposite of key words. But, sometimes fluff can be used productively. It must be very limited though.

When I fill out an application in the computer all the personal questions are required. The application will not go through if I do not answer those required questions.

@Richie it is true that employers view your social media sites prior to extending an interview. They do know your sex, approximate age, ethnicity, etc. just by your social media. They also get a good idea what you are like on a day to day basis based upon social media. Just let me add a caution here, though, Never ever answer questions such as age, marital status, how many children you have or anything of a very personal nature. These are illegal questions and that interviewer knows it. It is true that, no matter what, when you are face to face with that interviewer, all of the cards are on the table. If that interviewer has a bias, game over. Will that interview admit that you were not hired due to your sex, age or ethnicity? No way. They will simply say that another applicant was a better fit for the position. @Tom again, please note that we, at Beyond, are not recruiters. @Eppsie thanks for that. As for your cover letter, you should try not to do a general cover letter. Employers can smell that a mile away. Yes it used to be that we could write an overall cover letter and then just change the names and dates. Not today. Today everything is keyword centered. If you write a cover letter that does not include keywords from the job posting, your information will not hit the light of day through the ATS. Same is true with your resume. Check out some of the articles we have posted here. At the top of your home page, you will see a search field. Simply click on the down arrow next to the word Jobs and choose News and Advice. Then type in cover letter and go. We have tons of articles written that can help you with your cover letter. We wish you all the best.

on a lighter note to make everyone laugh, every time I interview I know the interviewer thinks I am latino. I am not though. If hired by a company sooner or later someone will try to ask me specific questions to find out my nationality I have fun with it because I am 50% American Indian, 25%black and 25% white. I enjoy keeping them guessing! Oh no! I just gave everyone my nationality information. (smile) try checking a box on an application if you were me. I would like to know what to write on a general cover letter? Please comment