Top 10 Worst Résumé Mistakes of 2009

Counting down the minutes of the Year We’d Like to Forget, the High Tech Connect team recalled the hundreds of résumés we reviewed and edited – and those really, really horrible ones that made us cringe.

Here, for your amusement and education, are the best of the worst:

1. Public (as in public relations) spelled without the l. You can NOT rely on spell-checkers to catch everything. Pubic is still a word. Just not one you want on your resume.
2. The Principal is your “pal.” For all those sole proprietors who give themselves this title, GAH! Use the correct spelling. Nothing nukes your chances faster than listing “Principle” as your title. It’s wrong and makes us insane.
3. Four different fonts. This is not the way the demonstrate your creativity. As Michelle exasperatedly exclaimed to no one in particular, “Pick one font and stick to it!”
4. Eight-point font. Not all clients are under the age of 30 and can read microscopic copy. Minimum font size should be 10, 11 or 12, depending on the font style. Do NOT reduce the font to cram everything onto one or two pages. Most résumés are reviewed in electronic form so if the reader can’t quickly scroll through 2-3 pages, it’s even faster to hit the Delete key. Trust us.
5. No margins. Do you GET the concept of white space? Just like the point above, people who cram everything possible into their résumé by using a smaller font will often shave margins down to .5″. This makes it hard for the reader and printed pages will often cut off your content. It also leaves no room for comments from reviewers in hard copy. Rule of thumb, leave one-inch margins all around. Ahh, doesn’t that look better?
6. Nineteen pages. Not even kidding. I don’t care who you are or where you walked on water, there is NO excuse for a résumé this long. Include links to online samples and redirect to your website if necessary. Bullets should call out your results and achievements, not rehash full job descriptions.
7. HIPAA. Just because it’s pronounced “hippa” does not mean you spell it that way. It stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and the correct acronym is HIPAA. Check Wikipedia. Many who do healthcare communications spell this incorrectly, which tells us attention to detail is not your strength.
8. Facebook is for faces. Do not include your picture on your résumé unless you are in the real estate industry. And even then, we don’t get that whole strategy.
9. Guess my city. First, we don’t recommend you list your street address any more. It’s a privacy thing, to throw off any potential stalkers. But if you ARE going to list your street address, you might want to include the city so the employer knows how far away you live.
10. The kitchen sink. Ever seen a résumé with arrows, *stars*, italics, bold, CAPS, underline, and everything else in the MS Word arsenal? It’s atrocious. Less is always more. Stick to one bullet style, use either bold or CAPS as subheads (not both), and keep the rest super-clean. Your experience and talent should shine through in an easy-to-scan fashion, without doohickeys and adornments.