One can hardly find a resume that wouldn't have any weak points. Sometimes, you can do nothing about them; sometimes there are actually several tricks that could help you smoothen the gaps on your resume. Although all resume mistakes are individual (i.e. made by different people and different circumstances), we could still highlight the most common of them. In this article, we not only want to point to such mistakes but also help job seekers handle those challenges.
Resume Writing: Objective, Skills, Keywords, and Accomplishments
The first goes objective. Most people feel they have to put an objective statement at the very beginning of the resume just because everybody else used to do it. That's wrong. Having an objective statement gives you neither any benefit nor any advantage over other candidates. Because it usually brings no useful information to an employer it just takes space for nothing. Instead of adding an objective statement, think of adding the overview of qualifications or simply the type of position you excel at. This way you will demonstrate to a potential employer that you value their time. Remember, that it is not about what you want (objective), but what hiring authorities need (overview of qualifications).
Skills. About 85% of resumes end with the skills section. Most of these skills bring no new information because every hiring manager knows there will be "excellent communication skills", "Microsoft Word/Excel/PowerPoint", etc. In order to attract attention to your resume include something that would be interesting for hiring authorities and useful for the company. Very often job seekers list skills that are considered as given (email, Internet, etc). Rid HR managers of the rigmarole of reading boring skills sections.
Keywords. There is an ongoing debate on whether keywords should get as much attention as they use to get recently. We are not going to take sides here; we will just state that if you know the company you are sending your resume to has keyword tracking software, then it would be a nuisance not to use appropriate keywords. Otherwise, you will be disqualified by the scanning system.
Lastly, accomplishments. The problem with most resumes, the recruiters claim, is that they can't find specific results. Job seekers like to focus on daily responsibilities they used to perform, but rarely provide verifiable metrics of their work. Remember, describing your skills and responsibilities isn't enough to get a job. The company needs to know specific numbers and metrics (results). The great result would be to show how you increased the income, generated new businesses, expand the customer base, etc.
