Here are five résumé tricks that you should pass up. 1. Using a functional résumé instead of a chronological résumé to hide weaknesses in your work history. If youre trying to hide gaps between jobs, disguise several short-term stays or downplay the fact that youve been out of the workforce for a while, you might have been advised that you should use a functional résumé instead of a chronological one. Rather than a traditional résumé, which would be in reverse-chronological order, functional résumés simply list skills and abilities without tying them to specific jobs and dates. The problem with this format? Employers know that theyre generally used to disguise limited or outdated work experience or job hopping, and so theyre generally taken as a red flag that the candidate is trying to cover something up. Moreover, employers hate this format since it makes it hard to understand what the candidates career progression has been, and how recent (or old) those listed accomplishments are. If your skills are strong, an employer might contact you anyway and ask you to clarify the chronology of your work history -- but when they have plenty of other good candidates to choose from, it will make them more likely to simply pass you up. 2. Shortening your résumé by shrinking the margins and font instead of cutting content. Sometimes a candidate who has heard that his or her résumé shouldnt be more than one or two pages tries to hit that limit by using a tiny font and narrowing page margins to cram more text in. But its pretty obvious to people who read a lot of résumés when youve done this, and youll come across as someone who cant or wont edit and who doesnt know whats most important. Worse, youll dilute your résumés impact, because small, crowded text with no white space is hard to read and even harder to scan, which means hiring managers eyes are likely to glaze over when they turn to your résumé -- the exact opposite of the reaction you want. 3. Leaving dates off your résumé to avoid age discrimination. Older candidates are sometimes advised to leave dates of employment off their résumés altogether, so that employers dont draw conclusions about their age and assume that theyre too old, too expensive or too set in their ways. The problem with this advice is that dates of employment are such a standard part of a résumé that leaving them off looks bizarre -- like leaving the house without your pants. Moreover, its not just convention; dates of employment are relevant. Employers want to know if your experience managing the team that achieved such great results was recent or if it was 20 years ago, as well as whether you did it for six months or three years. However, if youre concerned about age discrimination, one thing you can do is remove from your résumé jobs that are older than 15 to 20 years. Theyre unlikely to strengthen your candidacy at this point anyway, and your more recent accomplishments are probably more impressive. 4. Littering your résumé with keywords to get by résumé-screening software. Many job seekers have become convinced that the only way their résumés will be seen by human eyes is to figure out some magical combination of keywords to make it past résumé-screening software. In reality, many companies (especially smaller ones) dont use résumé-screening software, and those that do dont screen using obscure keywords. Any halfway competent résumé screener is going to run expansive and varied enough searches that your résumé should get seen if youre a qualified candidate. You dont need to stumble on some esoteric combination of words to get spotted. Plus, tailoring your résumé to what you think a computer program wants to see is a good way to make it unappealing to human eyes -- and its a human who will ultimately decide whether to call you in for an interview. 5. Using a fancy or unusual résumé design to stand out and catch the hiring managers eye. When you know youre competing against a sea of similarly qualified candidates, it can be tempting to think you need to find creative ways to stand out, like using an unusual résumé design with graphics and colors. But often a fancy design backfires by making it harder for employers to quickly find the information theyre looking for on your résumé. In fact, fancy résumé designs tend to minimize the amount of information you can include, sacrificing content for flash. Thats at odds with what hiring managers want from your résumé, which is quite simple: a clean, uncluttered document thats easy to quickly scan and which puts information in the places they expect to find it. Designs that emphasize appearance over those characteristics will make your job search harder, not easier.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 03:28:55 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015