Consider These 8 CV & Resume Mistakes When Applying For Jobs

Every job seeker goes through the struggle of securing a job interview after applying for a job opening. Many times, they make cardinal mistakes in their CVs and resumes, so they never even get to show their potential employer why they could be a good fit, as these employers reject them based on their application mistakes. To tackle that for every job seeker struggling to put together an impressive CV or resume, employers identified the mistakes that make them reject candidates in this new study by OfficeNeedle. The biggest mistakes, according to the 2800 surveyed employers are:

LONG RESUME FORMAT

Around every other surveyed employer (57% of them) stated they reject resume applications that are longer than two pages. If you have under 10 years of experience, there is no point in making your resume longer than a page, anyway. However, if you have more experience, you can keep your resume up to two pages long.

According to the OfficeNeedle study, a quarter of the employers (25%) take under one minute to review an application. As they are short on time, you should make it easy for them to find the most important information.

SPELLING MISTAKES AND BAD GRAMMAR USE

The most convincing mistake that employers identified as a reason to reject a candidate are bad grammar and typos. A majority of the employers who took the survey (75%) admitted they are likely to reject an application due to misspelled words and improper grammar use

When writing your application, make sure to use spell-check and ask a friend if they can proofread it, as well. That way, you won’t send your application with common typing mistakes, such as “gaurd”, instead of “guard”, “untill”, instead of “until”, or “acheive”, instead of “achieve”. When it comes to grammar, resumes and CVs don’t favor the use of pronouns (such as “I” or “me”). Instead, these formats like bite-sized information. Also, stick to the past tense use for every action that took place in the past.

INCORRECT CONTACT INFORMATION

The contact section of your application should include your name and your email address. Also, 93% of surveyed employers said they want you to include your phone number. Make sure that your phone number is correct so that they can contact you easily when and if needed.

When it comes to the email address, stick to using email addresses that include your first and last name. If you list an embarrassing email address, such as [email protected], some employers might put your application in the “no pile” straight away. It isn’t surprising that 21% of employers reject applications with unprofessional email addresses. Finally, only a small portion of the surveyed employers (14% of them) say they want you to include your social media profiles.

UNRELATED CVs & RESUMES

Around half of employers (47% of them) said they would reject applications that are not tailored to the job position. That is why you should not take the one-size-fits-all approach and send out the same application for many different job openings and positions.

LISTING RESPONSIBILITIES INSTEAD OF ACHIEVEMENTS

Job seekers rarely think to show their potential employers how they could contribute to their business by showing what they have accomplished in the past. Instead, what they do, is tell the story of what their duties were at their past jobs.

This is wrong according to 43% of polled employers, who stated they were likely to reject applicants who fail to show their impacts and accomplishments. To show your achievements, don’t be scared to use numbers and figures to quantify your results. By showing what you have accomplished, you can demonstrate your value to a potential employer and how you can contribute to their business.

USING INCONSISTENT FONTS

Resumes and CVs are valued for not just the content you put on it, but also for how you design it by many employers. Around one-third of employers who participated in the survey (32%) said that poor design and layout of the application leave a bad impression on them, which can lead to the rejection of the application altogether

One important thing to keep in mind here is which font you should use. Always choose a font that is easy to read and do not mix more than one font in the same application. Around 46% of employers admitted they reject applications with more than one font.

WRONG ROLE ORDER LIST

In the experience section of your CV or resume, it is very important to list your previous roles in the right order. Over half of the polled employers (61%) complained about listing roles in order from the oldest to the latest.

They want to know about your latest roles, along with the skills and the knowledge that come with those roles. That is why you should provide the most detail for your latest roles, and then make your way down to the oldest roles.

INCLUDING MEANINGLESS CLICHÉS: “Team player”, “professional”, and “hard worker” are only some of the meaningless clichés that around 60% of employers who participated in the survey detest seeing on a CV or a resume. While you really may be a “hard worker”, change your approach to stating it by proving it with tangible facts. To achieve that, you can show your potential employer how productive you are and how well you manage the time.

CONCLUSION: If you are guilty of committing at least some of these mistakes on your CV or resume, now is the perfect chance to right your wrongs. It could result in more job interview invitations and could bring you one step closer to securing a job of your dreams while making your job search a little easier.

AUTHOR BIO Mateja Vukomanović is a Senior Writer at OfficeNeedle. Her goal is to bring clarity to anyone who wants to improve or start their own business by researching latest business trends and writing informative articles about them.