Too Busy To Blog

That is this week’s message. I see it as good news for all of us. Being ever the pessimist (as noted more than once in prior blogs) this too shall pass. But for now, our firm is busy. Companies are starting to hire and finding the right people in the right places is becoming a challenge. So I’m going to take the easy way out this week and use someone else’s material.

Resumedoctor.com did a survey some years back (2002 as I recall). They gathered feedback from over 2500 recruiters and came up with “THE TOP TWENTY THINGS RECRUITERS HATE ABOUT RESUMES”. I think it’s still a pretty good list and worthy of your consideration.

THE TOP TWENTY THINGS RECRUITERS HATE ABOUT RESUMES
1. Spelling Errors, Typos and Poor Grammar
2. Too Duty Oriented - reads like a job description and fails to explain what the job seeker's accomplishments were and how they did so.
3. Dates not included or inaccurate dates
4. Contact Info - none or inaccurate contact info or unprofessional email addresses
5. Poor formatting - boxes, templates, tables, use of header and footers, etc
6. Functional Resumes as opposed to writing a Chronological Resume
7. Long Resumes - too long
8. Paragraphs - Long Paragraphs . not Bullet-points
9. Unqualified Candidates - Candidates who apply to positions they are not qualified for
10. Personal Info not relative to the Job
11. Employer info not included and/or not telling what industry or product candidate worked in
12. Lying, misleading (especially in terms of education, dates and inflated
titles)
13. Objectives or Meaningless Introductions
14. Font Choice - poor font choice or style
15. Resumes sent in .pdf, .zip files, faxed, web page resumes, mailed resumes and not sent as WORD Attachment
16. Pictures, Graphics or URL links no recruiter will call up
17. No easy to follow summary
18. 1st or 3rd Person - Resumes in either 1st or 3rd Person
19. Gaps in employment
20. Burying important info in the resume

Now I'm going to get back to work. I've got resumes to read.