As a member of the Career Collective blogging community of resume writers and career coaches, this Halloween-themed post is one of many today discussing how to avoid scary career/resume mistakes -or- how to ensure your resume/career “costume” fits you and attracts your target audience. I encourage you to visit other members’ responses linked at the end of my post and follow our hashtag on Twitter: #careercollective.
How can you keep your resume from falling in the ‘toss’ pile? Are there ways you make your resume easier to read and follow along? Are there things you can avoid so you don’t look like every other resume out there? Yes! And I’m glad you asked. WIth Halloween a few days away, let’s talk about avoiding some frightful resume mistakes.
The walls are closing in on you! Not enough white space.
It’s more common that you think. You update your resume and the content falls onto a second (or third) page so you adjust and adjust and adjust the margins until it fits. Not the best solution! I never recommend margins smaller than 0.6 or 0.7 inches all around. If you don’t maintain a healthy amount of white space, the page loses readability and becomes visually overloaded. Too little content isn’t good, but too much one page isn’t good either. It is okay to move onto another page – you have my permission, with the caveat that you have enough content to fill at least a quarter of the page. If not, consider removing some content or changing the font or reducing the size of the font slightly
Death by Bullets.
Bullet points are like salt or any other seasoning when you’re cooking. You can have too little or too much and it will ruin the dish (errr.. document). A job description that has a list of 8, 9, 10 or more bullets is just not that effective. There’s no rule that says you need to lead off every statement in a job description with a bullet. In fact, the opposite is true. I reserve my bullets for accomplishments and achievements that I want to highlight. I don’t use bullets lightly. Try it. Lightening up on your bullet use is a good thing. They will really begin to pop off the page when you limit them. And just as you should limit the number of bullets, you should also limit the length of your bulleted statements. My personal rule is 3 lines max, 4 lines only if absolutely necessary. They’re not paragraphs – they are bullet points!
Scaaaarrry font selections. Too small, too hard to read, or too many.
For optimum readability, font size should be between 10 and 12 and you should stick with commonly used fonts so as to avoid a situation where a font is not installed on the hiring manager’s computer. If that happens, you lose all control over how your resume will look on the receiving end. Talk about scary! The other thing to keep in mind is consistency and “less is more.” A resume should have no more than two font styles in it. On the majority of my projects, I stick with one and alter it with bold, italics, and small caps. If you want to use two, use one consistently for section titles and then a second one for the content of the document, and then stop. Walk away from the keyboard. Resist the urge to incorporate a third font.
Template Horror.
You are an individual with unique strengths, talents, and abilities. You want to stand out in the job search process. You need to in today’s competitive marketplace. So then why are you still using a Microsoft Word resume template that you first created five years ago? If anything shouts cookie cutter, it’s opening up a resume and seeing a Microsoft Word template. I realize not everyone is adept at adding lines, shading and other accents to Word documents, but please start with a clean Microsoft Word document and do what you can. It doesn’t need to be over the top. It just needs to be original. And if formatting Word documents makes you cringe, a professional resume writer can assist you. Some writers offer services that focus on formatting if you’d prefer to maintain control over content creation.
So there you have it. Four ways to avoid the horrors that can be find lurking on your resume.
The following are posts addressing the same topic from my colleagues in the Career Collective:
Where Are the Wild Things, Anyway?, @WorkWithIllness
Is Your Job Search Making You Feel Like a Smashed Pumpkin?, @DebraWheatman
Hiding in Plain Sight, @WalterAkana,
Don’t make these frightful resume mistakes, @LaurieBerenson
How Not to Be a Spooky Job Seeker, @heathermundell
A Tombstone Resume:Eulogizing Your Experience, @GayleHoward
The Top Ten Scary Things Job Seekers Do, @barbarasafani
Oh, Job Search Isn’t Like Trick or Treating?, @careersherpa
A Most Unfortunate Resume Mistake No One Will Tell You, @chandlee
Oh no. Not the phone!, @DawnBugni
Halloween Caution: Job Seeker Horror, @resumeservice
Boo! Are you scaring away opportunities or the competition? @MartinBuckland @EliteResumes
Your Career Brand: A Scary Trick or an Appealing Treat?, @KCCareerCoach
How to avoid mistakes on your resume, @Keppie_Careers
Sc-sc-scary Resume Mistakes, @erinkennedycprw
A Flawed Resume is a Scary Prospect, @KatCareerGal
Job Search Angst: Like Clouds Mounting Before a Storm, @ValueIntoWords
Does Your Career Costume Fit You?, @expatcoachmegan
