Here are ten pieces of really bad resume advice that will definitely undermine your job search:
- If you have been a stay-at-home parent for several years, give yourself a promotion: Call yourself a “household engineer.” Then hope the hiring managers do not fall on the floor laughing.
- If you have changed jobs a lot, simply omit most of the jobs and close up the gaps by adding a couple of years to the jobs that remain. Then hope no one checks references.
- If you left a job because your boss was an impossible jerk, be sure to explain that on your resume. Because everyone wants to hire a complainer, right?
- If you are not certain that your resume is worth sending out, ask twenty or thirty people for their opinions. Then spend months trying to incorporate all their advice at once.
- If the company asks for skills or experience you do not have, claim you have them anyway. Then hope no one asks you a question you cannot answer during the interview.
- If you will take any job that anyone offers, ignore the skills, experience, and education in job postings and advertisements; apply for everything. After all, you might get an interview—you might also be elected President of Morovia.
- If you are changing jobs after decades at one company, do not bother describing your achievements; everything you ever accomplished was part of your job description and nothing special. Then hope the companies you contact appreciate people with a long career of accomplishing nothing.
- If you are a recent college graduate, do not write a resume at all; four years of education, some volunteer or summer work, and a few campus club memberships do not qualify you for a job. Just throw yourself on a recruiter’s mercy.
- Don’t bother checking and rechecking your resume for errors or typos; you don’t want to work for any company that is nitpicky.
- If you have decided to take any of this bad advice, refuse to see a professional resume writer. What do professionals know, after all?
At Robin’s Resumes®, we are dedicated to keeping job hunters away from bad advice; we write strong resumes that clearly show each individual’s value to potential employers. Please contact us.