The resume is the first step of the job search process and arguably the most important. Your resume is your personalized marketing material to show hiring managers your skills, experience, and achievements. Nowadays not only are hiring managers looking at your resume, but so are bots, which makes it even more important to keep your resume clear and effective. If you are looking to get your resume in the best shape, here are 8 things you should leave off your resume to help bypass those bots and get viewed by hiring managers.
- Objective Statements
- While objective statements used to be a common staple of resumes, in today’s world they are outdated, and unless they are tailored specifically to the company or role you’re applying for, can be irrelevant. A better alternative would be to add a professional summary highlighting what you can contribute to a company.
- Headshots/Pictures
- Unfortunately adding a photo to your resume can open the door for bias in the hiring process, so it is best to leave those off.
- Personal information
- You no longer need to put your full mailing address, marital status, age, or other identifiable information. All these details are not necessary to showcase your professional background and capabilities of doing a job.
However, you must provide some type of contact information on a resume, so simply list your phone number, email address, and/or LinkedIn profile and you are all set.
- Unprofessional Email Addresses and Language
- While an email address is an essential piece of personal information to list on your resume, what your email address says matters. If your email address doesn’t professionally represent you, now might be a good time to change it. Keep it professionally appropriate, for example, [email protected].
- Hobbies and Interests
- Employers know you have a life outside of work, but do they need to read about that on your resume? No. Unless those hobbies directly correlate to the role you’re applying for, leave it off.
- Outdated Work Experience
- Your resume does not need to exceed 1-2 pages unless you are in a senior-level managerial role. A lot of hiring managers will choose to disregard a resume that’s too lengthy. Your resume doesn’t need to tell every single detail about your work history -keep your resume succinct and on point.
- A good rule of thumb is to forego adding experience over 10+ years old. Technology and processes change too frequently for experience over 10 years ago. However, if you have been in your current company for over 10 years, you will want to list all the years and roles you’ve had with that employer.
- Irrelevant Work Experience and Skills
- Changes in jobs and industries are a very normal part of a person’s career journey. If you have a variety of roles in your background that are not relevant to the position you are applying for, it’s okay to omit them on the resume. Or, you may choose to create a separate “Other Experience” section and provide company names, job titles, and dates of employment to offset any employment gaps in your resume.
- When it comes to listing your skills, try to focus on specific technologies and platform knowledge that apply to the job you’re applying for. However, try to avoid skills such as “Typing 60 wpm” as that is outdated.
- References/References Available Upon Request
- Until an employer has made an offer of employment to you and asked for them, references are not necessary. Adding reference names and contact information, or “References Available Upon Request,” is taking up valuable space on your resume.
Now that you have read these 8 things to delete from your resume, double check yours and ask yourself “What can I remove to create space for more reviewable friendly information”?
Bridge Personnel specializes in a range of roles in the Financial Services, Contact Center, and Non-Clinical Healthcare Industries. Contact us today.