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Your #Career : 9 Mistakes that Will get your Résumé Thrown in the Trash…Having a Résumé riddled with Errors is like Shooting Yourself in the Foot before the Race even Starts. There are Minor Problems that Hiring Managers Might Overlook or Forgive.

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And then there are the mistakes that’ll get your application thrown out faster than you can say, “It was a mistake to put my CV in Comic Sans font.”

ResumeInHole

Here are several devastating résumé errors that’ll get you immediately tossed into the rejection pile:

Vivian Giang contributed to an earlier version of this article.

Distracting typos and grammatical errors

An abundance typos and grammatical errors tell the hiring manager one thing — you didn’t care enough to take two seconds to double check your résumé. So why should they take the time to read it?

Lies

Don’t lie on your résumé. You’ll get caught — immediately or eventually — and it’ll be super awkward for everyone involved. If you’re really concerned that you have no experience relative to the role, it’s better to just be honest and hope for the best.

Salary information

“Some people include past hourly rates for jobs they held in college,” Nicolai says. This information is completely unnecessary and may send the wrong message.

Amy Hoover, president of Talent Zoo, says you also shouldn’t address your desired salary in a résumé. “This document is intended to showcase your professional experience and skills. Salary comes later in the interview process.”

Ridiculous fonts

Don’t get fancy with your font choices.

Curly-tailed fonts are also a turn off according to J.T. O’Donnell, a career and workplace expert, founder of career-advice site WorkItDaily.com, and author of “Careerealism: The Smart Approach to a Satisfying Career “People try to make their résumé look classier with a fancy font, but studies show they are harder to read and the recruiter absorbs less about you.”

Less is more when it comes to the font you use on your résumé.

No mention of required skills or experience

This one’s pretty basic, but if you don’t meet any of the minimum qualifications, your résumé’s probably going to get tossed (especially for management-level positions). Hiring managers don’t have all day to pore over CVs that don’t meet their criteria.

You don’t even have to be unqualified! Your résumé might just be so bad it fails highlight any of your actual strengths and experiences, leaving the hiring manager feeling like you’re not a good fit.

 

Telling the hiring manager what you can’t do

In Business Insider’s previous roundup of disastrous résumés, one applicant revealed that they didn’t want to deal with angry customers in the future.

The résumé is only the beginning of the application process. Don’t start off with such a negative tone.

Nonsensical formatting

There’s no reason to get creative with your formatting (unless you’re in a design-based industry and you really know what you’re doing). Everyone else, use a standard template. Anything too complicated will just annoy the reader.

Complete lack of relevant experience

How does that waiting job you had in high school apply to the financial internship you’re applying for?

Clogging up your résumé with useless tidbits is a surefire way of landing in the “no” pile.

 

Businessinsider.com | September 2, 2016 | Jacquelyn Smith, Rachel Gillett and Áine Cain

Your #Career : 10 Quick Changes That Help Your Resume Get Noticed…If the Applicant Does Not Obey the Rules, the Resume or Application Goes into the Proverbial Black Hole and Never Reaches its Intended Destination.

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The adage “What you don’t know won’t hurt you” is very misleading, especially for people in transition or otherwise contemplating a career change. Not only is the contention untrue, but also it in fact hinders the ability to get what you want. Furthermore, it conveys a false sense of positive feeling. For example, those in transition are advised to customize their resumes to the job openings they’re applying to.

ResumeInHole

Sounds logical, but it’s a laborious process that can take hours of close work, even though, at the end of the process, clicking on Submit or Apply gives a sense of satisfaction. But it’s a false satisfaction because nowadays, most if not all such submissions are going through electronic software called an applicant-tracking system, or ATS, which has its own rules.

If the applicant does not obey the rules, the resume or application goes into the proverbial black hole and never reaches its intended destination. That’s where the hurt comes in, because the applicant will never learn why it happened or how to correct the process for next time.

 

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So, what to do?

 

Here are several suggestions. They apply only to electronic job applications, which means you should have two versions of the resume: one for ATS software so that it will reach a recruiter and another one for a human.

  1. Submit your resume in Microsoft Word format.
  2. Do not include tables in formatting the text.
  3. Be aware that there are many ATS providers, including archaic and new versions. As a candidate, you have no way of knowing which one your resume will have to deal with, and pdf files or files formatted in other ways might not be able to get read into every type of ATS software.
  4. Don’t format your resume by way of the use of a resume template.
  5. Use the standard, customary section headers for sections and put them on separate lines.
  6. Type those section headers in all capital letters, such as “Professional Experience,” but do not type anything else in all caps. Of course use a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence, for the words in course titles and for all proper nouns.
  7. Be consistent when listing your previous companies and titles — whichever you want to list first for emphasis.
  8. List a company name with its appropriate suffix such as Inc. or LLC. Otherwise, the company name could be mistaken for a different company.
  9. Separate each resume section by a blank line, but never add a blank line within a paragraph.

Do not number the pages because computers see all information as continuous. Your page number would wind up appearing at random somewhere in the middle of the document.

As you can see, the foregoing steps may appear as details, but as another adage goes, “The devil is in the details;” and that notion could be both crucial and decisive for your future career.

 

Entrepreneur.com | August 27, 2016 | Alex Freund

 

Your #Career : 2 Things That Could Keep You From Landing That Job Offer…“It’s Happened Over & Over. I Practice. I Study. I Do everything Right. But Then I Don’t get the Job. What’s Wrong with Me?”

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Leah was discouraged with her job search and hired me to help her. “I’m really good at what I do, but I’m not a dynamic interviewee,” Leah told me during our first meeting. “My resume gets me the telephone interview. That gets me the in-person interview. But then I never get the job offer.”

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She took a sip of coffee and sighed as she set her cup on the table. “It’s happened over and over. I practice. I study. I do everything right. But then I don’t get the job. What’s wrong with me?”

 

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Some times, like Leah, a candidate can do everything right when it comes to preparing for an interview. And after reviewing what Leah had been doing as prep work, she had done a great job. But for many hiring managers, there are often other attributes they look for in candidates during job interviews that might not be specifically called out in the job posting.

A friend of mine sums up these unstated attributes quite well. He says he looks for “attitude, aptitude, and promotability.” In other words, he looks for someone who has a positive attitude and is energetic, who is intelligent and has the ability to learn new things, and who has long-term potential with the organization.

While a hiring manager can see some of these characteristics by reading the job candidate’s resume, most are attributes that come across while interviewing someone in person. Leah and I conducted some practice interviews. Her problem? Even though she was highly professional and had good qualifications, she seemed “flat” during her interview. With each passing minute, Leah’s energy level decreased and her voice became more monotone.

Leah just wasn’t selling me on her passion and drive for the job. She also wasn’t conveying work examples to show her determination to take on more challenging work and learn new skills. So we took a break from our mock interview and discussed those additional attributes hiring managers often look for, but which usually aren’t listed on most job descriptions.

Leah caught on quickly, and I could see her energy level increase as she began telling me stories about the various projects she had led and the results she was able to achieve. She also provided me with examples where she had proactively contributed to improving processes and described what she had done over the last year as part of her personal development plan.

Guess what? As she was telling me all this, Leah became more and more excited, and her passion for her work became clearly visible. This was exactly the energetic attitude she needed to get across to hiring managers during job interviews!

Sometimes it isn’t a lack of prep work that keeps you from obtaining your dream job – it might be that you’re not exuding enough passion or energy for the position. So consider ways you can demonstrate these attributes through your non-verbal communication as well as the examples you provide during interviews.

Lisa Quast is the author of Secrets of a Hiring Manager Turned Career Coach: A Foolproof Guide to Getting the Job You Want. Every Time.

 

Forbes.com | July 11, 2016 | Lisa Quast

Your #Career : 4 Worst Pieces of Career Advice to Avoid…Here are some Career Tips the Experts Told Us you’d be Better Off Avoiding.

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There’s a lot of work advice out there, and some of it is pretty bad. When it comes to navigating your career, you have to be careful about who you take career advice from. A wrong move could cost you a job. Here are some career tips the experts told us you’d be better off avoiding.

question mark signs painted on a asphalt road surface

1. A flashy resume will help you stand out

A flashy resume could cause your application to get passed over. While a little creativity is welcome, going overboard is a problem, said Saad Rizvi, founder of career site Mentat. “In many cases, the first round interview screen is conducted by an ATS or Application Tracking System (in simple terms, a robot!). These programs are optimized for gathering information from a very basic design, and fancy graphs or pictures are not picked up or taken into consideration while filtering out resumes, so you might be passed over despite being a good fit for the role,” Rizvi told The Cheat Sheet.

 

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2. Apply for as many jobs as you can at one company

No matter how tempting, resist the urge to blast your application to everyone at the same company. Also resist the urge to apply for multiple jobs at the same company. Marissa Peretz, founder of Silicon Beach Talent, said doing a resume blast reeks of desperation. “[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Don’t] cast too wide a net. Emailing everyone whose email address you can find at a specific company or applying to many open jobs at one company can convey an air of desperation. People sometimes fall in love with a specific company, and that’s understandable, but the way to increase your chances is to think about these opportunities strategically. I suggest only applying to roles you are actually a fit for, and try to network with people at a company you’re interested in or speak with recruiters who can help present you directly,” said Peretz.

3. Stay at a new job for at least one year

Job hopping looks bad on your resume, but if you’re miserable at a new job, don’t feel obligated to finish out the year. This is especially true if your job is making you sick. Debbie Chew, head of operations at Codementor, told The Cheat Sheet it’s best to leave and search for another opportunity. “If you’re downright unhappy with your job and you’re unable to cope, then it’s not worth it to pretend to be happy or stay. Instead of wasting your time at a job not suitable for you, you can be doing other things like learning a new skill or finding a different job,” said Chew.

4. Go on interviews for jobs you aren’t interested in just for the practice

Practice on your own time. Lori Bumgarner, career specialist and owner of passion and career coaching servicepaNASH, said hiring managers have a sixth sense and will know immediately what you’re doing. Your best bet is to only interview for jobs you would actually consider taking. “Avoid interviewing for a job you don’t intend to take if offered just for interview practice. Recruiters can often sense when a candidate is doing this, and recruiters run in the same circles (especially within the same industry) and they talk to each other. Word will get around if a candidate is known for doing this, which could hurt their chances of getting an interview or an offer for a job they actually want … If you want to improve your interview skills, do some mock interviews with friends or family who are in hiring positions at their jobs, or with a career coach,” Bumgarner said.

 

CheatSheet.com | July 10, 2016 | 

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