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If you are looking for a career change or your first job, you know that you need a resume to submit your application. However, we live in an era where changing a career is something most people want to do. They have realized that their current job brings no satisfaction, so they are looking for new job opportunities.
Some domains are more popular than others and this makes the competition between candidates fierce. It might be one of the reasons why you did not get any answer to your application. The other ones are that your profile might not be fit for the job or your resume might have mistakes. Try to keep your best resume for your job search. So, here are 10 common mistakes you should avoid in your resume.
10 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Your Resume
1. Unrelated Work Experience
One of the common mistakes many people make when they craft their resumes is that they include irrelevant work experience. For example, if you apply for a web developer position, including your work experience as a cashier is not recommended. It would be ideal to mention any experience that is tied in one way or another with the job you apply for.
2. More Than One Resume
But if you need to include only relevant information and work experience, what should you do when you apply for a new job from a different domain? Well, experts suggest you could have more than one resume. Depending on the job and domain you apply for, you could mention in your resume the work experience that proves you would be a good fit.
3. Providing Details
Another mistake many candidates make is that they do not provide the necessary details. Your potential employer might skim the resume, but without some details to explain your main roles and responsibilities, they might assess that you don’t have experience. Or that you are not a good fit for the job you apply to. Make sure you provide enough details so that the employer could understand the value you would bring to the team.
4. Focusing on Responsibilities, not Achievements
You can find a lot of resume examples online. Most candidates inspire by these and they deliver a resume that looks like the other ones. Both in terms of design and information. Candidates choose to focus on responsibilities, on the tasks they have completed at their previous jobs. However, everyone can note down these, as they are public in the job description.
Considering that the competition is fierce, you have to find ways to catch the attention of recruiters and stand out from the crowd. And to do this and break the patterns, you could focus more on your achievements. Have you contributed to the launch of a well-known app? Mention it in your resume. This and other achievements as well will show that you are a passionate and dedicated employee.
5. Irrelevant Skills
This is the same story as work experience. Listing skills or previous work experiences that are not relevant to the job you apply for is a mistake many candidates make. Your chances of getting the job do not increase depending on the length of your resume. So, aim to list skills that you have developed and are relevant to the job you apply to.
6. Too Long vs Too Short
There is a common misconception that resumes should be one page long. Of course, this might apply to many candidates, but not to all. The experiences each human goes through are diverse. And in some cases, listing relevant skills and work experiences might take you more than one page, which is okay. Make sure you do not cut things too short or make them too long. If you have to submit a cover letter too, you should know that it is a great opportunity to share more light on your experience and goals.
7. Professional Summary
A lot of candidates include a section in their resume called “Objectives” where they share more about their career objectives. About what they want to achieve in their careers. While this is nice and it sheds more light on your career plans, it says little about you. You could mention your objectives and tie them with those of the company. Or have a short professional summary where you highlight your value for the team.
8. Action Verbs
You were responsible for designing new websites, testing new features, or crafting the agenda for a project or team. Well, yes, these describe your responsibilities. But you should choose more action verbs than describe every task you had beginning with “responsible for”. Instead, take the bull by the horns and use action verbs. They make your resume bolder and it will catch the attention of the recruiter.
9. Eye-Candy
Many candidates use templates they find online, but most of them use the same template. Which will make your resume get lost from other similar ones. No one says that you should craft your design, especially if you do not have any graphic design inclination.
However, you can find a lot of different templates online you can use. Many of them are available for free. For example, you can find some templates in Microsoft Word. At the same time, you can use Canva, a great online tool that helps you craft an eye-candy design. And you do not have to be a graphic designer because everything is intuitive and user-friendly.
10. Grammar Mistakes and Typos
Another common mistake candidates make in their resumes is submitting them without any proofreading. Your resume should be impeccable to stand out from the crowd. So, you should double-check it for grammar and spelling mistakes and correct them.
Conclusion
The competition in some domains is fierce at the moment, which puts more pressure on candidates to craft powerful resumes. However, many of them make common mistakes that do not help them stand out from the crowd in a positive way.
It is therefore important to take the time you need to carefully choose the working experience and skills you want to list. Take the time you need to double-check what you have written, but also search for and choose a nice template.
