resume mistakes poor first impression

resume mistakes poor first impression Your professional resume has a huge impact on the direction of your career. This document represents a potential employers single first impression. It is necessary to make sure its a good one. Making a faux pas creates a negative impression in the minds of hiring professionals and can severely impact your chance of getting the job you want. Therefore, to ensure your resume stands outs, avoid: 1. Highlighting Your Responsibilities. A future employer wants to get a sense of how you stand out from the hundreds of other applicants. Rather than merely listing your duties, detail what you accomplished in each job, or what I call STAR stories. Think about how you specifically helped the company grow, or save money, or become more efficient. Its your actions and results that entice a potential employer; not a laundry list of job duties. Highlighting your accomplishments shows youre someone who takes their job seriously by adding value and will increase your chance of getting an interview. 2. Grammatical and Spelling Errors. This may seem like a no-brainer; however, its vital to ensure that your resume is free of grammatical and spelling errors. While its tempting to think that minor errors are not going to be noticed, or that they are not a big deal, they are. Grammatical and spelling errors give the impression that you dont pay attention to detail or that you dont care, neither of which are appealing attributes for a future employer. Grammatical and spelling errors are a relatively easy fix. Set your word processing spell check to the right language. Job hunting in Canada? Make sure you set your software to Canadian English. Read your resume out loud so you can hear how it sounds. Read it backwards which forces you to read each word versus skimming the document. Additionally, having someone else review your resume to catch any errors you may have missed always helps guarantee the document is top notch. 3. A Generic Resume. Employers can sense authenticity. Therefore, when you send out the same resume to 100 different companies without personalizing it for the job youre applying for, employers will see right through it. A generic resume gives the impression that youre desperate for a job without any true interest in the company youre applying for. A generic resume could destroy your chances of making it to the next hiring round. Employers expect you to take the time to review the job posting and match your resume to their requirements. 4. Omitting Employment and Education. Gaps in employment or the lack of dates gives the impression that youre trying to hide something, which does not sit well with hiring professionals. Be sure to include all your employment history and the dates of the degrees youve earned to ensure future employers do not feel as though youre trying to deceive them in some way. 5. A Resume that Is Visually Unappealing. Avoid underlining, headers and footers, using more than two fonts, or adding pictures on your resume. A resume that is simple and easy to follow will not only give the impression that youre professional and organized, but it will also increase your chances of landing an interview. ContactElite Resumes for a free critiquefrom a Certified Professional Resume Writer to ensure your resume is free of faux pas and gives a great first impression tothe next decision maker that can help you land your next interview.