Creating your new CV or Resume is easier said than done. It’s easy to forget that your employer or the one that you are applying to has a lot of resumes crossing his desk over a week. It’s a competitive world out there. This is why we’ve put together this little list of the most common mistakes that you make when creating your new CV or resume.
You might think that the interview does most of the work, but based on feedback from employers a CV or a Resume really does matter. It shows the employer how serious you are about a position there.
The structure of your Resume or CV
Making your Resume or CV nicely readable and enjoyable to swift through is something that often gets overlooked. Mashing a bunch of words in short lines of paragraphs makes the text rather exhausting to read through. How to prevent this is very easy. Use the correct punctuation marks, utilise comma’s, etc. Don’t be afraid to use these, but don’t overdo it, you don’t want to end up with a mix match of random punctuation marks and commas.
Use them in appropriate sentences and at the right time and context.
Online tools such as cvmaker.com actually keep count of your words and give you recommendations based on how you are structuring your CV or Resume.
Using online tools like cvmaker.com cost a little, but they spare you the hassle of working with clunky Word templates and will make it easy to tailor your resume to each job offer. The endresult will be an attractive resume that stands out.
Your resume is too wordy
As the title says, you’re making your resume too wordy. Note we are not talking about the word count here, but the way you formulate your sentences are vital. If you are using too complex vocabulary to get a point across then you are guilty of this. Making letters or paragraphs way too wordy and not nice to read.
Overusing words like “rather”,“perhaps”,”per se” or “thus” will make your resume a pain to read and unconsciously put the employer off which ultimately will translate to your resume ending up in the bin.
Your resume is too overwhelming
You’ve all seen these crazy flower-themed Resumes that made your stomach turn.
These resumes can be used in very specific situations but in 99% they can’t be used.
Not only talking about the awful flower patterns but overwhelming themes in general.
A resume with pictures and graphics really puts off a lot of employers.
Most of the time, simplicity is key. A clean and simple design often beats the crazy ones.
To find the current best themes/formats take a look here.
You don’t highlight enough skills
Now, it’s hard to highlight more skills if you don’t have any more than you already got listed.
But people often forget the little jobs they did left and right. How small or how big is it? Write it down, that little internship you did a few years back? Note it down, leverage everything you have done. It’s very easy to undersell you but know your self worth and oversell yourself a little and then deliver afterward. Don’t sell yourself so short!
You go too personal or too formal
This is a bit tricky one because it is completely subjective to the employer(s) going through your resume. Making your resume way too personal will give the employer the feeling that you are not serious about the job and that just quickly wrote something down. In contrast, going in too formal on your resume will give the employer the feeling that the resume is a copy-paste job from employer to employer, you have not tailored your resume around the setting of the company.
