Your resume is no longer the repository of every proud moment in your life. Those days are over. That’s a dated approach. Instead, your resume is now a targeted, search engine optimized Personal Branding and Direct Marketing Tool, with one central objective – getting you an interview.
In general, anything that doesn’t directly relate to the job you’re targeting should be removed. There is power in subtraction and simplification – as it translates into focus, coherence and relevance.
However, the issue of removing content should not be confused with resume length. Despite the myth, resume length is never the reason a candidate is thrown out of contention. Instead, what harms most candidates is either not including enough relevant content and/or including too much non-relevant content.
The following are just some of the things that you want to remove from your résumé.
- Your résumé should not include the words "I", "me", or “my”. It's understood that everything on your résumé is about you and your experiences.
- Don’t include company-specific jargon- like customized software, technologies, and processes that are only known within that organization.
- Don’t use auto-formatted headers, footers, columns, tables, images, or charts. These items might “look” cool, but they confuse the applicant-tracking systems that companies use nowadays. The system will often scramble up your résumé and spit it out in a poorly formatted version that in no way resembles what you intended – and some information will disappear altogether.
- Don’t include simultaneous positions within your career history. If it is non-profit related, place it in your Community Involvement section. If it’s a moonlighting position – don’t include it on your resume.
- A short professional positioning statement is perfect – especially if it explains how you add value to an organization. However, never include an “Objective” as an employer is interested in how you can benefit their organization – not in what your goal or objective may be.
- Don’t preface each piece of contact information with a field description (email, phone..,). Trust me, they’ll figure it out.
- Stick with one phone number – your mobile number. Remove all others.
- Never include “References by Request” – that is assumed and the phrase is a dated element that isn’t needed.
- Never include your references in your resume. Dedicate a single page for references that can be presented if someone requests it.
- Don’t include acronyms unless it’s likely that most anyone would know exactly what they mean.
- If you’ve been in the working world for 10 years or more – remove the months on your career history.
- It is admirable to give back to your community and to volunteer your time, but don’t consider every instance as something that needs to be chronicled on your resume. Stick with the major contributions and roles.
- Don’t list anything about your political or religious affiliations. Unless that is the business you’re in, that is no one else’s business.
- If you’ve been in the professional workforce for more than 10 years, remove your internships. Employers really don’t care.
- It’s fine to include any fraternal organization, but if you’ve been out of school for more than five years, don’t include any frivolous titles associated with your involvement.
- Nearly any position you held more that a quarter century ago is going to be completely irrelevant to most employers and it will most likely only serve to date you.
- If your earlier career positions, prior to 10 years ago, have nothing to do with your current career positioning – throw them overboard.
- Don’t include your college graduation dates if beyond 25 years ago.
- Don’t include certifications, licensures or training not relevant to your current career aim. This can send mixed signals and harm your brand.
- Don’t include your marital status or your family composition.
- Don’t list professional affiliations for industries or vocations that are irrelevant to your current career aim.
- If you’ve been in the professional workforce for more than three years – don’t list your activities from high school.
- Use the title “Relevant Experience” as your career history title and don’t include positions that lasted less than six months. Any position of less than six months in duration is typically irrelevant and will likely be of concern to the reader.
It’s hard to be objective with your own career – and to keep up with all of the changes in how candidates are found in this digital age.
At FiveChairs, Nashville-area recruiting has been at our very core since 2003 – and, since 2009, we’ve also become one of the top professional resume writing and personal branding experts in the nation.
As a recruiting company, we talk to hundreds of employers, so we know how to create job search tools that result in interviews - from early/mid career candidates to C-level executives, regardless of vocation or industry. No matter where you live in the U.S., drop us a line. resumes@fivechairs.com.
NOTE: If you include “Get Me Noticed” in the subject line, we’ll not only provide a free resume and personal branding analysis, if we create a new resume for you, we’ll also throw in a cover letter. resumes@fivechairs.com
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