Some good advice on the biggest mistakes in in writing your résumé:
- Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
- Opening generic objectives.
- Personal attributes (height, weight, age).
- Interests and hobbies (that have nothing to do with the job).
- Details of every task you’ve ever performed in every job you’ve ever had.
- Excessive bragging.
- Outdated information.
- False information.
- Unexplained gaps in work history.
- A lack of professionalism (pink paper, cutesy fonts, silly e-mail addresses)
As someone who’s gone through a lot of resumes — yeah.
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I’ll argue #4. I went through Right Management’s training on finding a job (targeted at executives), and they strongly recommend putting one or two items on the resume as ice-breakers, if you have them. Not dumb stuff, but things that are out of the ordinary.
It did work for me — I put on that I’d done NaNoWriMo, and that I used to be in a Celtic music group called The Wandering Haggis. Both have elicited responses from HR people and others reviewing the resume.
Hmmm. I think it could go either way. As someone who’s read resumes a *lot*, it can be an eye-catching differentiator … but it can also be a distraction. It may also vary with the type of job being sought. For a technical job, I’m looking for specific skill sets; the hobbies and personal bits *may* be a differentiator, but it can easily also become a detriment or come across as silly (as with the e-mail address item).