Professional Resume Writing Service

Well, you’ve heard of so you think you can dance? Welcome to “So you think you can write…” a resume…ahem.

Why am I writing this article you ask? It’s pretty simple really. During my years in the professional resume industry, I have discovered quite common complaints and errors made by job seekers.

I also offer some suggestions on how to manage these problems and create an Impressive Resume.

Ten Biggest Resume Mistakes

So what is it about resumes that sends people into a tailspin?  Could it be having to sell themselves?  Drafting and redrafting the text?  Lack of real guidance?

Over the last eleven years, I have read, assessed and rewritten countless resume and CVs.  In the tens of thousands I would estimate conservatively.  I also offer a free resume critique service.  There are common mistakes I see candidates making repeatedly, and thought here would be a good place to mention them in the hope that they don’t crop up in your resume!

1. Dry, boring, interminable lists of duties and responsibilities.  All these do is cause your resume to look like every other resume out there.  Talk about key achievements.  For example, which one of these statements looks better?  (taken from a real life clients “before” and “after” resume – “Load and unload truck, organise that all machinery and materials is on site before work starts” OR “Reduced company fuel bill by 39% through the introduction of fuel cards” Get the idea?  List those things that you achieved that were “above and beyond” the capabilities of anyone else in the same position
2. Listing previous positions in current tense rather than past tense and vice versa
3. Long lists of “key skills” such as “team  player” or “people person” Unless backed up by evidence, these are meaningless, and in all honesty from what I can see, everyone lists these, even those that don’t have great skills (I have seen CVs riddled with typos, and the candidate has stated they have “excellent written communication!”
4. Resumes that are too long, or pages of attached references which serve only to annoy the reader
5. Listing your marital status, date of birth within the resume
6. Plain, uninspiring layouts that do nothing to market the candidate as a viable commodity
7. Grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors within the resume
8. Photograph within the document, which I don’t recommend.  Once client even went so far to include an “intimate” shot that should really only have been seen by her husband! Yikes!
9. Including a career objective that is so general as to be meaningless.  It’s not the career objective that is the problem, more the way they are written.  For example, DON”T write something like this “to gain a position which makes full use of skills, experience and attributes” which does nothing and is absolutely meaningless.  The more specific your objective, the better
10. Use of acronyms or abbreviations within the resume, or technical terms, assuming the reader knows what these are, when often they don’t!!

If you have redrafted your resume based on the above tips, you can always forward your document to me for a free resume critique. You have little to lose, and much to gain!