More than 75% of your resume could be useless

You kill more trees by using more paper while printing your resume, and you contribute to further warming the planet by consuming extra kilobytes when circulating it electronically. So keeping your resume short not only gets you the attention of potential employers, it also makes you environmentally responsible.

Employers want applicants to learn how to produce more efficient resumes. An efficient resume is one that consumes the least amount of time for a potential employer to decide to call you for an interview. Avoid including unnecessary information on your resume and focus on what employers are really looking for. Below is a list of information that people include on their resumes that might not matter to employers:

1. The Title

If someone shows you a picture of a car, you’ll know it’s a car. You don’t have to write the word “car” on the car for people to recognize it. The same goes for your CV, so why consume half a page to display the two-letter “CV” in a giant font?

2. Goal

Most people use similar sets of objectives on their resume. It usually reads as: “I would like to join an organization that allows me to use my education, experience and skills…”. Does that sound like the mission statement you’re using on your resume? Well let me tell you something, employers are less concerned with your personal goals and more concerned with what you can offer.

3. Irrelevant Details

For example, the expiration date on your driver’s license is useless unless you are applying for a driver’s job. Likewise, your weight is your problem, so don’t include it as part of your personal data unless the job you’re applying for requires certain physical characteristics and attributes. I still get hundreds of resumes that contain “Military Status” of the candidate!

4. Training and short courses

Brief training and courses you attend usually don’t excite serious employers or add to your market value. However, if you have obtained an accredited or recognized certification from these trainings and courses, then surely you should include them. The same applies to courses taken in college if you graduated more than a decade ago.

5. Basic computer skills

Your knowledge and ability to use PowerPoint© or Microsoft Word or post photos to Instagram cannot be considered as part of your “Computer Skills”. So unless you are a Java, Python, C++, Ardiuno, or Ruby programmer, a WordPress or Joomla website builder, or have some technical computer knowledge or experience that is relevant to the work posted, just skip this section. .

6. Repetitive qualities

Job seekers often mention on their resumes that they are capable of working under high pressure, that they are active team players, that they love new challenges, that they are willing to pick up new skills and learn new things. Many of them also say that they are self-motivated and enterprising. These are indeed great qualities that make you as unique as 8 billion other people living on this planet. Focus on telling the employer what makes you unique.

7. Common hobbies

Keywords found on over 80% of resumes include: avid internet user, likes to travel, regularly reads articles on financial topics, and of course, likes to swim. It may surprise you to learn that not even 1% of employers read or care about what you have listed as your hobbies.

8.Reference

Finally, you need to understand the “Referral” part and its magnitude in the hiring process. Interested employers will surely look for some reference before making an offer. However, employers will rarely use any of the references you listed on your CV and will instead check through their own references.

The purpose of this article is not to make fun of those who produce poor. Some of these poorly written resumes that reach our job board are from executives with more than 20 years of experience. Worse still, some of them are filling or looking for high-level positions in human resources. Don’t include every section you find in ready-made resume writing templates. These templates are not written in stones. You can design your own CV template just like the British judges can rule without the wig and gown!