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Just to review: your resume will not get you a job.
Resumes' chief function is to get you an interview. The
interview's job is to get you a job. But you won't get an interview
if your resume raises too many flags.
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Today, we'll dissect a disastrous resume.
It is our sincere hope that your resume, dear reader, has little in
common with our sample resume in this file (click to open)
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How many mistakes did
you find?
There are several different fonts. This is a sure sign of an
amateur. One font, good. Two fonts or more, bad."
The name is left justified but the rest of the contact information
is centered. When aligning your contact information vertically, make
it all left justified, centered, or right justified. Don't mix their
justification.
What is it you want to do again? Where to start on the
objective? "Challenging stock broker position" is redundant: I've
never heard of a stock broker position that isn't challenging. The term
"progressive company" has lost its meaning due to overuse.
The phrase "...to utilize my premier communications skills as they
reward achievement" makes it seem like the communications skills reward
achievement, not the previously mentioned "progressive company"
(so much for having "premier communications skills). The whole
objective is also cliché ("...to obtain a challenging blah, blah,
blah, utilizing my blah, blah blah for a
progressive blah, blah, blah").
First person redundancies. Mr. Public's resume unfortunately
makes sporadic use of the first person singular pronoun. Assuming
this is his resume, his use of the first person is redundant.
Some start with action verbs, some don't. Now that Mr. Public
knows not to use first person pronouns, he should have a better time
starting his bullets with action verbs. He should reword his
"responsible for" and "everything" bullets to allow
them to start with action verbs.
Short bullets. While the bullets state what he's done, none
state why he did things or the results of his actions.
Non-aligned dates. This is an easy matter to fix. Move
them over to the right and have them line up. It just looks cleaner
that way.
Reasons for leaving are listed. This is, unfortunately, a
rather common mistake. Never put why you left a job on a
resume. Never. Ever.
Dates for Schooling/First Work/Awards. Sure, "Edumacation" is misspelled, but if Mr. Public's
lone academic credential is a high school diploma, he shouldn't list it -
and certainly not the date he graduated. Employers will do math and,
while age discrimination is illegal, it still happens. Due to the
date range, it might be better to say he won his award "(multiple times)"
than to list a 22-year-old date. And if he should take off his
starting work date in the Seventies.
IN THE CARAVAN: Avoid the mistakes in the resume example and
you'll be well on your way to a good resume.
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bSafari.c
The Lion’s Pride: Resumes
