The point is, resume mistakes are hard to avoid–like super-duper hard. And when it comes to your resume, even the tiniest of mistakes can make you seem careless or even outright incompetent in the eyes of unforgiving recruiters.
Friday, February 23, 2018
Ask These Six Questions Before Firing Off Your Resume
The point is, resume mistakes are hard to avoid–like super-duper hard. And when it comes to your resume, even the tiniest of mistakes can make you seem careless or even outright incompetent in the eyes of unforgiving recruiters.
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I have had a resume since I was in middle school. I’ve created a resume for theater, a resume for jobs outside theater, and another resume for theater and another resume for theater, and each one has evolved and had corrections and differing styles. In high school, we could only format our theatrical resume one way, and we had to update it and turn it in at the end of every semester. Coming to Carnegie Mellon, I’ve been given yet another rendition of how a theatrical resume should look. Basically, I’ve practiced formatting and proof reading time and time again and this article, although it may be helpful for others, I have found is not very helpful for my type of resume. Asking if you’re allowed to use “I” or “me?” In what context would I put that? I’m putting on my resume the things i”ve done, I do not need to say at all that I worked on this show and this show, I can just list it off no pronoun necessary!
Forever grateful that these kinds of articles exist. I know I've said before that sometimes these articles about jobs and professionalism seem to be more click bait than helpful information. However, this resume builder article is quiet helpful. The tip that stuck out the most to me is tip #2: Did someone else look over my resume? The article sums up my feelings exactly: "It’s darn near impossible sometimes to catch our own mistakes. Even published writers and book authors are not above having their work proofread by their editors, so whether it’s friends or family, get someone to read over your resume and share their thoughts. Even if they don’t catch any actual mistakes, it’s great to have someone offer a different opinion on how to structure a particular bullet point or reword a given sentence in order to take your resume to the next level." I always have a hard tome admitting to someone else that I need their help.
I read this article with my resume open to make any changes that I may have needed to. Alas, there was nothing I really changed. I have had roughly the same resume format and structure for about a year now, so it has gone through some pretty intense revision and polishing cycles. I always wonder how it could be better, but then I contemplate the "if it ain't broke" proverb and leave it be. I will say, I was expecting a different article when I clicked the link. I was expecting questions to ask a company you are applying to before you send them your resume. This seemed weird to me because I have been sending my resume to a bunch of places without asking them any questions first and I was surely hoping I was not making any big mistakes. I can't complain though, I like reading all the resume and cover letter articles because there is often a lot and contradictory information and then I get to pick what I want to follow.
These tips will definitely come in handy in the future. Making sure to build and write your resume so you include what is important, exclude what does not really matter, and format it all in the right way is actually really difficult. Since there are so many different ways to write and format a resume, it is hard to know if you are making a mistake or not. An article like this could really help anyone who was writing a resume for the first time, or pulling an old one back out for revisions. The only issue is that every job will have different preferences when it comes to resumes and formatting. Each person who you will interview with for jobs will have a different idea of the “correct” way to format a resume, which unfortunately means you can never get it perfect. However, following these steps is definitely a good start; making sure you have no gigantic glaring errors is obviously the right way to go.
This article comes at the perfect time as so many people are applying for summer internships or preparing to look for actual jobs at the end of the year. I always take these types of articles with a grain of salt because every employer and job will want different things and something that makes you seem professional in the eyes of one company may come off as immature or unprofessional. That being said, I think this article does a good job of presenting a general list of things to watch for that are generally applicable to most types of work. I particularly liked the opening to the article about the certainty of making mistakes on a resume, because I definitely think that’s true. I know I have sent out an application only to realize I had forgotten to put the date or some other trivial, but very important, piece of information.
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