Resumes can make or break a job application: everyone knows this. But have you ever considered, while you were heaping your various accomplishments and experience onto your resume, if you should actually be focusing on what not to tell your (hopefully) future employer? Sometimes, too much information – especially the wrong and irrelevant information – can cause your resume to get looked over and ignored, forcing you to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime. So how do you avoid a resume catastrophe? Well, there are certain pieces of information which you should leave out, such as these six below.
1. Unprofessional Email
I’m looking at you, puppylover123@gmail.com. Everyone has a less-than-professional email address from their youth, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but when setting up a new Gmail account is as easy as filling out a form, there’s really no excuse to use your personal email for work-related matters. Make sure that you keep your personal email as far away from your resume as physically possible – a simple john.smith1995@gmail.com could be the difference between you getting the job and your resume being laughed at and thrown away by a potential employer.
2. Address
“Although it wouldn’t happen in an ideal world, bias is a very real and common problem within recruitment and application processes,” James Goode, a recruiter at Last Minute Writing and Writinity, says, “so, to avoid any potential problems before you’ve even been considered or interviewed, limit your address to your city and province – no house numbers or road names. For a local job, your location could boost you up the ‘wanted’ list, but, again, no details are really needed. To be safe, keep your address to a minimum, and give yourself the best possible chance at landing the job!”.
3. References
This early in the application process, there is no need to be stating references – that will come later and naturally, if the employer is interested. At the resume stage, you might not even know if you want the job for sure yet, so you’ll most likely still be in work. If your current employer is one of your references, and you haven’t mentioned leaving yet, then that could bring up an awkward conversation when you next go into work. Leaving the simple ‘references will be provided upon request’ line can be enough for a resume, although even that is somewhat redundant, since everyone already knows it. Just hang fire on your references until later in the application process.
4. Lies
This should be common sense, but there’s always at least one person who decides to ‘fluff-up’ or ‘fill-out’ their resume, with experience or skills which are straight up not true. In this modern age, any lies about previous work or qualifications can easily be checked and discredited, and lying about your skills will only put you at a disadvantage later on (if you get the job) when you struggle with the duties expected of you. In short? Everything on your resume should be the absolute truth, just in case your lies come back to bite you later.
5. Stylized Fonts
“You may find them pretty, but whoever’s trying to decipher your resume will find them plain annoying – fancy fonts just aren’t the way to go!” Lisa Thompson, an HR at Draftbeyond and Researchpapersuk, suggests. “They can make your resume look tacky and childish, and, even worse, confuse a potential employer into disregarding your resume, just because they’re struggling to read it and could better spend their time reading someone else’s resume, which they can actually understand!”
6. Career Objective
Although putting a career objective onto your resume may seem like a good idea, it actually makes you seem very selfish, and turns the resume from being you applying to the job to you trying to use the job for your own aspirations. Employers appreciate, instead of ‘career objectives’, career summaries, wherein you explain your previous experience and skills in your particular career area and how you could bring value to the company, which takes you from looking self-centered to being a team-player who wants to actively help and engage with the workplace – much more employable, wouldn’t you agree?
About Ashley
Ashley Halsey writes professionally at LuckyAssignments as well as at GumEssays, and has been involved in countless projects throughout the company, with a very motivated and work-driven attitude. As a mother of two children, she is no stranger to juggling work and home lives, and hopes that her experience within her career can help others through any tough times with employment. In her spare time, she is passionate about travelling, reading and even attending business training courses, since she always loves improving on her pre-existing skills and discovering new ones.
