The Five Deadliest Resume Mistakes (& How to Fix Them)

The biggest problem most job-seekers run into is that the rules for job search have changed dramatically in the past half-decade. People looking for jobs, whether they're working or not, don't know how to proceed. It used to be easy to get a new job. These days the process is a million times more complicated, and most folks aren't familiar with the new landscape.

At Human Workplace we teach people to break a job search down into simple steps by thinking of a job hunt as a marketing project. I know, you're not a product like shampoo or laundry detergent -- you're a brilliant, creative, fun and warm-hearted person. Still, we have to adopt a marketing mindset on the job search trail. After all, we are selling something -- ourselves!

If you were selling your house, you might love the house and want it to go to a very special person or family, but you'd still have to market your house as a product. You'd have to set a fair price for it, for instance. It's the same way on a job search.

If you're a customer service representative and you fill out job applications to say that your target salary is $800,000 per year, no one is going to call you back. That price is out of line for the market.

When you're marketing a product, you start by thinking about the four Ps of marketing: product, place (that means distribution), promotion and pricing. We talked about pricing a minute ago. Use Payscale and Salary to make sure your market rate is in line with the salaries or wages local employers are paying. That part is easy!

We have three Ps left. "Place" refers to your distribution scheme, and in job-search lingo that means the channels for your job search. Most white-collar job-seekers use these four channels to get a job:

  1. Writing to hiring managers. This channel has two parts: a) Responding to posted job ads (not through the Black Hole, though! Your best bet is to write directly to your hiring manager with a Pain Letter stapled to your Human-Voiced Resume) and b) Reaching out to target hiring managers even when they don't have job ads posted.
  2. Networking with friends, neighbors, ex-colleagues and everyone you know.
  3. Working with recruiters, employment agencies, contract firms and/or temp firms, and
  4. Going to job fairs and/or working with your college Career Services organization.

The third P, promotion, is your advertising. For a job-seeker, that means constructing a complete and vibrant LinkedIn profile and an awesome resume.

The product is you, and we already know you're insanely qualified and brilliant. If you're not feeling all your mojo right now (and most job-seekers aren't) make it a point to get together with a good friend once a week.

That could be the same friend every week or several different people, but make sure it's someone who loves you and will remind you of your awesomeness when the cold, hard job-search world depletes your mojo.

Your mojo is everything in a job search!

Your resume is the centerpiece of your job search. Here are the five deadliest resume mistakes job-seekers make, with easy fixes for each one. Don't fall into these traps and inadvertently suck the power out of your brand.

You bring a tremendous amount to the lucky employer who snags you next. Don't let a boring or undecipherable resume detract from your flame!

The Five Deadliest Resume Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)

ONE: We Can't Tell What You Do Professionally

A Human-Voiced Resume always starts with a Summary at the top, just under your contact section. We need to know what you do professionally (tinker, tailor, soldier, spy, etc.) more than anything else!

Don't show hiring managers a list of past jobs and expect them to determine what you intend to do next -- make it plain with a declaration in your resume Summary, like "I'm a Product Marketer who loves to make small tech brands bigger."

The human voice in your Summary will endear you to the hiring managers who already have enough drones and sheep around them (or can't tolerate folks like that, and don't have any). What other kind of manager would you want to work for?

TWO: All Things to All People

Tempting as it is to throw every scrap of experience you've ever had in your resume to show hiring managers how versatile you are, don't do it. The worst brand in the world is the brand "I can do anything!" No one will believe you. Even if you CAN do everything, you've got to choose something that you especially love to do - otherwise you come across as someone who doesn't know him- or herself well enough or have the confidence to plot your own course.

You can maintain three or four different resume versions to use as you pursue two or three different 'prongs' in your job search -- Marketing, PR and Fund-Raising, for instance. Just don't use one resume to cover every base. It doesn't work.

THREE: We Can't Understand You

Typos, misspellings and English language errors are the quickest ways to get your resume thrown into the shredder. Double-check your resume, then read it backwards to catch any errors, then show it to two or three of your friends who love to edit written material. You can't afford to have errors in your resume, no matter how good you are at your work.

FOUR: Way Too Much Detail

A Human-Voiced Resume is one or two pages long, even for people with forty years of work experience. The more senior you are, the less detail you need to include. Keep it very simple -- just tell us what you came to get done at each job (your mission) and how well you did it.

Two bullets per job in your career history is plenty, especially if they're pithy Dragon-Slaying Stories like this one:

When our two biggest rivals merged, I launched a grassroots email marketing campaign that grew sales 25% to $2M the next quarter.

No one cares about your tasks and duties. That's just telling us what anybody in the job would have done. We want to know what YOU got done - what you left in your wake!

FIVE: Just Another Zombie Job-Seeker

The last deadly resume mistake is to write your resume in Boilerplate Zombie language, using phrases like "Results-oriented professional with a bottom-line orientation." That was a wonderful way to write a resume in 1982 or even 1997, but not today.

Employers can't tell one zombified Results-oriented professional from the next, and the biggest challenge a job-seeker has is to stand out in a crowded field.

Put a human voice in your resume, tell human stories and don't be afraid to use the word "I." For Pete's sake, your resume is a branding document! If you're not going to use the word "I" in a resume, when would you ever use it?

It's a new day. The Human Workplace movement is spreading like crazy around the world, and hiring managers are hungry for real people to solve the real problems they're facing. Step an inch outside the box and try something new in your job search. Watch your mojo grow when you bring your human power back into your professional life, where it should have been all along!

VIDEO: How to Answer the Question "What Do You Know About Our Company?"


If the Human Workplace mission to humanize work resonates with you, here's how you can get involved in the movement!

There are 300,000 Human Workplace members and fans around the world. You can join the movement, too! You can bring Human Workplace to your organization, or bring our CEO Liz Ryan to speak in your company or at your university or conference. Liz is a galvanizing speaker, and an opera singer to boot!

You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@humanworkplace) and take a 12-week virtual coaching group with us if you're ready to grow your flame and build new muscles for the 21st-century workplace!

Our June 2014 12-week virtual coaching groups launch on Saturday, June 28th. Two of them are brand new courses: The New Grad's Job Search Course and Perfect Professional Etiquette. Our best-selling courses like Put a Human Voice in Your Resume, Crafting Compelling Pain Letters, Launch Your Consulting Business and Get a Job No Matter What Boot Camp are starting up again on June 28, too! Check out the roster of June 2014 12-week virtual coaching groups here!

Everyone who registers for a June 2014 12-week virtual coaching group with Human Workplace will also receive our $199 Human-Voiced Resume MEGA Pack, full of instructional and motivational content to get you up the new-millennium learning curve!

The Human-Voiced Resume MEGA Pack contents are shown on the chart below!

When you join any Human Workplace 12-week virtual coaching group beginning June 28, 2014, you'll receive our Human-Voiced Resume MEGA Package as a registration gift, in addition to your 12-week virtual course! The contents of the MEGA Package are shown in the table above. The MEGA Package alone is worth over USD $300!

This MEGA Package includes many of our best-selling eBooks and a full, 20-lesson online course on writing your Human-Voiced Resume!

Shakirullah HASHIMI

Independent Consultant, Project Management Expert, Livestock Productions and Animal Health Professional.

1y

Useful info. It can work perfectly.

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Cindy Krebs CPhT

Certified Pharmacy Technician

9y

This truly works! I have been applying to the same company repeatedly and have been basically ignored. I went by the guidelines Liz Ryan has listed and I applied one more time and actually landed an interview. Thank you Liz.

Very helpful, thanks.

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Zhuo Bao

Consumer Credit and Payment Risk Management Professional, focusing on Data Science solutions

9y

This is a ultimate guideline for resume

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Tasha Pain

Bid Coordinator | Tender Submissions & Marketing Support

9y

Given the comments below, all this advice as to what to do/not do when writing job applications gets quite confusing! It really seems to be a gamble at the moment as to what you do to your resume and cover letters and whether you get an interview or not. I've had mostly bad luck in job hunting and so I'm going to try something different for myself and hope it works compared to what I used to do. I also have a question about the 'too much detail' part: what if I'm still quite inexperienced? Do I then need to write out the outcomes of my past roles/experience?

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