Many people often download various "resume templates" or "CV templates" from the internet. However, according to experienced HR professionals and headhunters, these easily accessible resume templates on the internet often contain hidden problems! We have compiled three common mistakes found in resumes. Before applying for a job, take 3 minutes to check if you've made any of these errors!
Content:
- Resume Mistake A: Bar Charts
- Resume Mistake B: Redundancy
- Resume Mistake C: Abstract Terms and Incomparable Data
Resume Mistake A: Bar Charts
Many online resume examples and templates use bar charts to present work skills and language abilities. While bar charts can visualize information and aid reading through graphics, applying them to resumes actually has the following fatal flaws:
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Useless information: Bar charts can only show the relative values of abilities, but not the absolute ones. In other words, bar charts completely fail to demonstrate how you differ from other applicants, which is “useless information" for HR professionals.
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Hinders HR's reading: Placing bar charts affects the resume layout. Typically, resumes are arranged in the order of education, work experience, and certifications, allowing HR to understand your growth trajectory. Using bar charts disrupts this flow, affecting their understanding of you.
How You Can Fix It
Remove the bar charts. HR values your "relevant experience", so let relevant experience occupy the largest space on your resume!
Also, presents professional skills in the form of beginner / intermediate / advanced. It better allows HR to intuitively understand your skill level!
Resume Mistake B: Redundancy
After solving the layout issues, you can focus on the "resume content." When writing resume content, many job seekers make the following mistakes:
Mistake B-1: Using Overly Mild Language
Many people don't dare to directly state their strengths when writing resumes. They feel they must first lay out a passage of text before daring to mention their skills.
Mistake B-2: Cause-and-effect Sentences
Some people will first write about their characteristics and interests, then explain why they like certain things, why they joined a particular company, what they did at the company, etc. This creates too many unnecessary causal relationships.
Mistake B-3: Information Irrelevant to Job Position
This is common in resumes of fresh graduates. For example, when applying for a digital marketing position, including convenience store part-time work experience in your work history is unnecessary, failing to highlight the relevance of your experience to the position you're applying for.
How You Can Fix It
First, we need to establish a realization: HR professionals don't read your resume word by word. Admit it, you haven't been reading this article word by word either; you've probably looked at the article title, table of contents, paragraph headings, subheadings, and bold text before finding the content you want to read.
HR professionals do the same, so you need to use “keywords" in your resume. Use concise language to write down the keywords that HR will focus on, actively guiding them to read what you want to highlight. At the same time, avoid long-winded or redundant words to allow HR to fully understand you within their limited attention span.
Resume Mistake C: Abstract Terms and Incomparable Data
Mistake C-1: Too Many Abstract Terms
Common abstract terms include "can", "good at", "many", and other various adjectives, of which everyone's definition varies greatly. Rather than processing the vague information, HR would ignore these terms altogether.
Mistake C-2: Incomparable Data
Many people know not to use abstract terms, so they put data on their resumes to prove their abilities. Adding objective data is a good idea, but many people fail to choose "comparable data.”
For example, simply stating that “I managed to sell our products to 100 clients” is not sufficient, because the HR may not be clear about the business scale of the company you worked for, and thus cannot determine whether 100 is impressive or not.
How You Can Fix It
Present in terms of "growth rate,” comparing with previous years' performance. However, please don't fabricate numbers to write an impressive resume. This is very easy to expose during subsequent interviews!
