The 7 Deadly Sins Of Resume Writing…. and how to avoid them!

As you can imagine, we’ve read a lot of resume’s here at Butler HR over the last 20+ years, and some of them are… let’s just say, sub-par!

Now we fully appreciate that writing a CV isn’t much fun, but the problem is that for many, that ‘lil old document is the gatekeeper between you and your dream job! So if you muck it up you might as well wave goodbye to that fancy new job title and juicy pay rise because you won’t even make it to the first stage of the recruitment process.

Instantly Improve Your CV

With that in mind, we want to help you put your best foot forward from the outset, and make sure you’re not falling foul of the seven biggest mistakes we see on resumes every single day. There are a multitude of traps people fall into when it comes to selling themselves on paper – these are the one’s we want you to focus on avoiding from the get-go:-

1.  Boring The Reader To Death

The top half of the first page of your resume is ‘prime real estate’ so use it wisely …. 3-5 key achievements plus a personal branding statement are the best use of space

2.  Replicating Your Job Description 

Job descriptions are rarely riveting to read so don’t just ‘copy and paste’ yours into your CV!  Instead, write about what you’ve contributed to and achieved during your career. These are the things that matter to a hiring manager, not a list of responsibilities.

3.  Writing A Story

Your resume is a marketing tool designed to SELL you, not a novel about your life story.  Capture attention by thinking like a marketer and be succinct.

4.  Not Adding Value

Employers care about how you can solve a problem, add value to their team or organisation, or make/save money – tie your experience in with these key points where possible to demonstrate that you’re someone who can add value to an organisation and is worth hiring

5.  Being Passive

Avoid phrases like ‘responsibilities included” and instead choose action verbs that convey results and captivate attention i.e. lead, launched, spearheaded

6.  Bad formatting

Choose clean lines, bullet points, plenty of space and at least 11pt text to make your resume easy on the eye

7.  Laziness

Spell check, spell check, spell check.  You can never check too many times!  It’s amazing how many resumes haven’t been checked – don’t let yourself be one of ‘those people’.

Need help with your job search? Looking for career advice? Drop us a line mail@butlerhr.com.au or call 02 4229 9142