Post your resume to hundreds of employment sites at the click of a mouse!

Um…I don’t think so.

When recruiters receive hundreds (literally…) of resumes a day, they must make quick, instinctive, hassle-free decisions in weeding through those resumes. And I’ll let you in on a secret; they are looking for reasons, any reason, to put you in the ‘No’ pile.  That is the most effective approach to weeding when it is your job to screen resumes every day.  When I was recruiting and wading through 300-500 resumes a day, if I didn’t like the feel of a resume, it went in the ‘No’ pile and I never gave it a second thought. It is that brutal.  Recruiters are not agonizing over each resume looking for that one perfect person for the job- they’re looking for three or four strong candidates to pass around to the hiring managers and sales managers to get their opinions. So getting that ‘Yes’ pile to be as small and clean as possible is the recruiter’s preliminary objective.  There are many common resume errors that job seekers make that will land them in the ‘No’ pile of any recruiter in a hot second.  Make sure your resume is free of any of these pet peeves.  

• Typos and bad grammar - Please have someone proofread your resume; spell-check will not catch that you wrote ‘to’ instead of ‘too’.
• Missing dates, overlapping dates or inaccurate dates - Do not lie on a resume.   Bad, bad, bad….
• Unprofessional e-mail addresses - It sounds petty, but if you put an e-mail address of ‘partyhottie@hotmail.com’ on your resume, you’ve just revealed your lack of professionalism - instant ‘No’ pile.
• Long, dense paragraphs - Your job descriptions should not read like a novel. Use a couple sentences to give a general idea of the position, then use three or four bullet points to highlight some specific accomplishments. If your resume takes effort to read, it won’t be read.
• Layout templates - Please don’t use tables or boxes on your resume; they may or may not open in the proper format if sent electronically.
• Functional resumes - These are very difficult to visually scan for relevant information, and therefore aren’t scanned - instant ‘No’ pile. The only exception to this rule is if the position applied for is ‘entry leve’l and it is understood that the applicants will not have much to feature in the way of experience.
  
• Written in 1^st person - The word “I” should never appear on a resume.
• Visual clutter - Keep your font style and layout simple. Do not use colored paper or colored font.  This is not an art project and a resume should never be described as ‘cute’!
• Annoying file type - Please do not send resumes as a .zip file, a .pdf file, a web page or a fax (unless specifically requested).  Standard practice is to send resumes as Word attachments.