I’ve admitted my one of my mistakes.  In fact, I’ve admitted it a lot. 

Why?  Hopefully nobody will make the same gaffes I did.  Hey – if you can’t learn from your own mistakes, you might as well learn from others’.

Long story short: I have a degree in journalism, so I’m fairly confident I know how to write.  As such, I was fairly confident in the quality of my resume when I was laid off.  But I listened to advice and tweaked it.  Then I listened to more advice and tweaked it some more. And listened and tweaked and listened and tweaked and before long, my resume was a pile of dung. 

Naturally, I was mystified that I wasn’t getting any response from employers.

Soon, however, I learned the 23^rd revision of my resume was the culprit.  I also learned good resumes can go bad pretty easily.  Here are the top five culprits:

1) Too many cooks.  Instead of incorporating the (often contradicting) advice from many “experts,” choose one source.  You’ll save time and frustration. 

2) Too short of a test.  Many jobseekers are resume addicts.  If they don’t get hits from their resumes for a couple days, they’ll change it, then rinse and repeat.  It’s better to test your new resume for a couple weeks.

3) Too fancy. Great skills and qualifications (properly stacked in your resume) should stand by themselves.  There is no need to use fancy fonts, ink colors or garish paper.

4) Old school.  Trying to cram three decades of work experience onto a one page resume will work against you.  So will writing it with a typewriter, listing your marital status and weight.  Those “standard practices” are no longer “standard.”

5) Hobbies.  An otherwise perfect resume can be destroyed with this heading.  Employers usually don’t care that you enjoy reading, biking and long walks on the beach.  They want employees – not dates.

IN THE CARAVAN: Good resumes can go bad easily. 

NEXT MONDAY: Three Proofreading Tips to Perfect Your Resume

Want more Resume advice?  Check out The Lion’s Pride!

Check out last Monday’s post.