9 Things Not to Put on Your Resume or CV

Recruiters waste no time reviewing the many resumes they receive. Assuming your resume or curriculum vitae (CV) ever makes its way past a screening bot and into human hands, the average time recruiters spend reading a CV is just five to seven seconds

Within those few seconds, the recruiter will scan your document for several red flags that should never be included in a resume. Here are some key mistakes to avoid making in your resume. 

1. Typos

It only takes one spelling mistake for a recruiter to put your resume in the trash and move on to the next application. Many recruiters regard typos as an automatic veto because, the logic goes, if a candidate makes a mistake here — in what is presumably their best work — they’ll probably make mistakes on the job as well.

Mistakes in resumes carry a host of negative connotations such as not having pride in one’s work, rushing a job, and sloppiness. Check your document, re-check it, and check it again.

2. Lies

People lie on resumes to cover up awkward gaps in their career histories or give themselves an edge over other candidates, but honesty is always the best policy. While the recruiter is unlikely to spot a mistruth in their first quick scan of the document, they may discover a discrepancy later on when they perform an online search for shortlisted candidates.

Companies often outsource fact-checking to third-party organizations who are adept at verifying the truth of your claims such as employment history and academic qualifications.

Even if a lie remains undetected through the candidate journey and you win the job, it can remain on your file like a ticking time-bomb.

3. Listing Duties Instead of Achievements

Recruiters do not want to receive a list that details your employment history and the duties you undertook in each job. This will give them zero insight into the value you could potentially bring to the hiring organization.

What recruiters want to see is a shortlist of achievements under each duty. Let me demonstrate the difference between duties and accomplishments with this example for an event planner: "'Planned events' would be considered a job duty, whereas ‘raised $100,000 by selling out tickets to a 200-person charity event’ is an accomplishment.”

Use numbers wherever possible to illustrate your achievement, rather than trying to do so with words only. For example, instead of writing “Greatly improved efficiency of production processes,” back your up claim with real figures: “Improved efficiency of production processes by 38% over a three-month period.”

4. Claiming the Achievements of Others As Your Own

Another red flag occurs when a job applicant appears to claim sole responsibility for something that was unmistakeably a team effort. Even if you feel that being “part of a team that achieved [x]” is less impressive than claiming you did it alone, acknowledging others shows humility and indicates that you can work well with colleagues to get results for your organization.

This is particularly important for managers — be sure to acknowledge the input of your former teams into the achievements listed in your resume. Claiming that you successfully developed new software to transform the business, apparently alone, is less impressive than writing that you managed a team that developed the software.

5. Outdated or Irrelevant Roles and Achievements

Yes, we know you’re proud that you starred as Annie in your junior-high musical, but this information doesn’t really belong on your resume two decades later.

Most people will spend their earliest years in the workforce in jobs unrelated to their targeted career. These jobs do belong on the CVs of early-career professionals. When you’re applying for your first Medical Device Sales role there’s a real skill in convincing would-be employers that the transferable B2B skills you picked up from working at ADP or at an office equipment or copier sales company for example, will stand you in great stead for the Territory Manager role under discussion.

However, as your job history grows and you update your resume with your most recent achievements, be sure to regularly trim older and increasingly irrelevant achievements from your work history.

6. Personal Information

Be careful what information you reveal in your CV, because you may be unintentionally activating a recruiter’s unconscious bias. While a name will often give away a candidate’s gender and ethnicity — raising a strong case for blind resumes— other giveaways may include:

• information about religion (e.g. church activities listed under “hobbies”)
• age (while age can often be gleaned from someone’s employment and educational history, it isn’t a good idea to simply state your age in your resume)
• marital or parental status

8. Poor Formatting

Like spelling and typos, poor formatting suggests that the candidate does not have strong attention to detail and may make similar mistakes if they get the job. Things to look out for include differing fonts, unaligned bullet points, different-sized headings, and extra spaces.

It’s generally recommended that you err on the side of conservatism when creating your layout. This means choosing a standard font, sticking to black and white, and not attempting to stand out from the competition with a “whacky” layout — unless, of course, you’re going for a job as a graphic designer. 

9. Keyword Over-optimization

As mentioned, before resumes make their way to a recruiter’s desk, they often have to get past an Applicant Tracking System, otherwise known as an ATS or recruitment bot. To do so, it’s very strongly advised that candidates tailor their CV to each position rather than sending a generic resume to every employer.

This involves paying close attention to the job description, creating a shortlist of keywords, and making sure they’re included in the resume. There’s a subtle art to keyword usage where it becomes immediately obvious to a human reader when they’re overused, or “over-optimized.”

Here’s an example of over-optimization for the keyword manufacturing:

“In 2020 I led manufacturing efforts which included overseeing manufacturing processes using manufacturing management software to schedule manufacturing activities.”

The language is clearly geared towards an ATS bot rather than a human reader. The same goes for another beat-the-bot trick known as keyword stuffing — filling all the empty space on a page with invisible (white) keywords typed over and over again. Many recruiters now check for this practice and do not appreciate it.  

Keeping these 9 tips in mind will help you create a document that isn’t dismissed after a seven-second scan and will convince the recruiter that your resume is worthy of a longer read. 

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