Four Things That Can Send Your Resume into the
Trash 慎寫應徵書信，否則會被棄置
By Charles Purdy, Monster Senior
Editor
You may be the perfect fit
for a job -- but a hiring manager is never going to find that out if he trashes
your resume after a mere glance. Even in this age of online professional
networking, a great resume is still the foundation of a successful job search.
It's common knowledge that spelling errors and
grammatical bloopers are trash triggers (and these simple mistakes top many
recruiters’ lists of resume pet peeves). But is there anything else that job
seekers are unwittingly doing wrong? We asked some recruiting managers and
career experts about the resume errors that cause them to crumple and toss a
resume at first look -- and some of their answers may surprise you.
1. Your Resume Is
Badly Formatted格式不佳
Looks matter. Career expert Abby Kohut lists misaligned indentations and double
spaces as a couple of the things that make a resume start to look like it
belongs in the garbage. The fix? Use tabs for indents, and search your document
for stray double spaces.
Also beware of being too creative. "I don't like it when I receive resumes
with funky fonts," says Mona Abdel-Halim, co-founder of the Web-based
resume tool Resunate, who echoed other experts we spoke to. "It is not
professional and it makes the resume harder to read." When choosing resume
fonts, opt ones that are widely used and readable, such as Calibri or Arial,
and use no more than two fonts with their associated bold and italic styles.
2. Your Resume Is Immature成熟度不够
Other hiring managers we talked to said they had immediately trashed resumes
with pictures on them -- for example, of cartoon character Bart Simpson (in the
case of one applicant for a technical writing job) or of a kitten (an applicant
for a customer service job). Cute resume additions like these are for kids --
not professionals.
3. Your Resume Is Too Templated太格式化
Longtime recruiter Mike Monroe says that unaltered, familiar resume templates from word-processing programs annoy him. "This
won't automatically put you in the trash, but it tells me that you have put
less thought into your resume than your competition," he says.
Jessica Campbell, an HR manager for talent agency Voices.com, says one of her
pet peeves is "when a candidate has used a template resume," but
hasn't updated it before sending it. (And if you use Word's Track Changes
feature to edit your resume, make sure to accept all changes in the final
version before submitting it.)
To prevent your resume from ending up in the trash for this reason, customize your
resume for each job you apply for
using the language of the job ad and highlighting your most relevant
experience.
"When the resume is not tailored to the position, it shows you don't
really understand what the employer is looking for and are just hoping your
resume fits some of the criteria,” says career expert Heather Huhman, author of
Lies, Damned Lies & Internships: The Truth About
Getting from Classroom to Cubicle. “To avoid this mistake,
show the employer how you fit those [criteria] through your previous
experience, skills and expertise."
4. Your Resume Is Sneaky書信鬼鬼祟祟
Kohut says she immediately distrusts people whose resumes have no dates on
them. “Gaps are not a problem,” she says. “The problem is when you
try to be deceptive."
David S. Williams, founder and CEO of salary consultancy SpringRaise, agrees,
saying that if you are or have been unemployed, don’t try to hide it. “You may
be doing yourself a disservice because you may be a strong candidate for a
position, but you tried to hide your current status," he says.
A better tactic is to be straightforward on your resume, and then use your
cover letter to tell the story of your career's progress -- including
information about how you maximized your time away from the 9-to-5 routine. And
do remember to write a cover letter -- not doing so is another guaranteed way
to get your resume thrown into the trash, according to the experts.
Let an expert
write you a job-winning resume and cover letter. 請專家替你寫，尤其是開塲白的信
06/06/2014
