Determined to ruin your resume—and potential interview opportunities? Here’s what to do:
- Use a template created by someone else. Since these are often created using graphics and tables and have a rigid format, there is no guarantee that your information will flow in an intelligible way into the automated Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) most employers use today.
- Place a photo at the top of your resume. Especially if you’re an actor or model. If you’re applying for any other type of position, you are exposing a potential employer to legal risk and will be quickly disqualified from consideration.
- Begin your resume with a meaningless objective that focuses on what you want: a long-term position with an established company that can provide growth opportunities for my career. Leave your qualifications and career goal(s) as vague as possible so the recruiter has to guess what they are and how they relate to the position s/he needs to fill.
- Be sure to include the phrase “References Available Upon Request.” This lets the recruiter know that you: 1) haven’t a clue regarding current resume practices and 2) that you’re probably older than someone s/he wants to hire.
- Include salary history. A great strategy for winning an offer that’s less than you’re worth.
- Include references when submitting your resume. This will surely attract attention, but not the kind you’re hoping for unless you are specifically asked to submit references when you apply.
- Make no any effort to customize your resume for the job you’re applying for. This strategy is especially effective when you haven’t read the posting carefully and are therefore clueless about the job requirements/qualifications.
- Apply for positions that you have zero experience in and lack qualifications for. Yep. This is sure to leave your resume languishing unread in a database somewhere and you wondering why there are no jobs.
- Focus heavily on the specifics of your current job description. This remains true even if they describe lower-level tasks that you do not want to perform and are totally unrelated to the position you’re applying for.
- Fail to mention anything that sets you apart from the thousands of others who may be applying for the same job with the most sought-after employer(s) in your market. Note that you’ll be competing against the best and brightest, so this is like making 200 copies of your resume, throwing them all up in the air and hoping a couple stick to the ceiling.