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Written by: Tracy P. Miller
Editor, Publisher
TearTaylor's Career Corner
Need help pulling together your resume? Well, don’t worry I’m about to share some useful tips for creating resumes that will meet the approval of most hiring directors. However, instead of using what are traditionally called “good resumes” as building examples for this tutorial, I decided to go with bad resumes to help illustrate what not to do and what to do in developing resumes.
A Bad Resume
Let's start by taking a look at our first bad resume. It's the first in three that will be used in this tutorial. Make sure to look the resume over first and then take a guess at where you think the writer made her mistake(s) in constructing her resume. Also, i
n critiquing this resume, you'll want to keep in mind that this applicant or rather writer developed this resume for the purpose of landing a job as a home-based Office Support Assistant. So in critiquing this first resume, you'll want to check and see if the writer included any skills or past job duties typically required of clerical workers.Now, go ahead and click on the link, Janice Mitchell's resume, to view the first resume. Once you've looked it over, meet me back at the next paragraph to start analyzing the problem areas of this resume.
Resume #1: Reviewing Problem Areas
Bad Objective Statement:
If you'll refer to Janice Mitchell's extracted resume example just below, you'll notice that this applicant didn't use the objective statement properly. She deviated from its real purpose, which is to briefly state an applicant's career objective and that's it. This applicant clearly did more than that.Resume #1: Janice Mitchell (top resume portion)
As you can see, this applicant used the objective statement to convey the details of a sad personal situation, which is not what the statement is intended for. If she thought including this information would help her land an interview by acquiring sympathy votes, she was seriously wrong. Nobody wants to take on an employee that has openly revealed that she has personal problems that may severely hamper her efforts in completing tasks in a regular and consistent fashion, whether that be from a conventional office environment or out of her home working for an employer.
Wants Easier Job:
Another serious mistake that the writer made with her objective statement was mentioning the fact that she wanted to slow down, that she wanted less of a demanding job. She assumed because she was applying for a position that would allow her the freedom to work from her home, that just coincidentally, the duties required of this position would presumably be less rigorous than that of a conventional office position. Making an assumption like this one and openly revealing it to the hiring person is a serious no-no. No person that's in a position to offer an applicant a job wants to read a line at the top of a resume where an applicant basically says, "I'm looking to slow down and relax for a spell while you pay me for it."Vague Descriptions, No Power Verbs, Inconsistent Punctuation & Poor Formatting:
This applicant was vague in her descriptions of her duties with employers. She didn't use a generous assortment of power verbs to describe her list of duties with employers. She wasn't consistent in punctuation. Sometimes she ended her descriptions with commas and sometimes she didn't. Her format and overall structural spacing was poor. She increased her indentations on some lines more so than others which gave her resume a choppy, ill-organized appearance.Educational Background Missing: She neglected to provide a section outlining her educational accomplishments. Even if she didn't have the opportunity to go to college and only completed high school, there should've still been some mention of what her educational background entailed.
Needs Bullets & Larger Font Size: Because there's not much information on the page, she could've taken advantage of bullets to help extend the information further down the page to give the hopeful impression that there was actually more content here. Also, using bullets would've aided her readers in targeting information faster and also made it a lot easier to see where one job description ended and the next one began. Also, she could've increased the font size that her document was typed in. The type was just entirely too small. Increasing the font size slightly would've definitely made it easier on her reader's eyes and also decreased the likelihood of her resume ending up in a circular file prematurely.
Please review resume #2 before you continue reading the very next paragraph. To view the actual resume, please click on the following link: Candice Ryan's resume.
Resume #2: Reviewing Problem Areas
Typo (Missing Number):
In the top header of Ms. Ryan's extracted resume example just below, you'll notice that she didn't provide her entire phone number. She forgot to include the very last digit. She was obviously in a rush to get this resume out the door, but this is definitely a glaring typo that many hiring directors deduct points for.Resume #2: Candice Ryan (top resume portion)
No Examples of Experience:
This applicant provided very little details concerning her job duties with previous employers. All we really know is that she was responsible for plant safety, inventory control, shipping and receiving operations for her last employer and for the previous employer she was responsible for plant safety and sanitation. That's about it. There's not much on her resume to determine if she's capable of performing the duties required of a home-based office support assistant.Weak Objective Statement:
Her objective statement was too general and just poorly developed. She would've been better off leaving this statement out entirely. All it did was draw attention to the fact that she didn't know how to use it properly.Poor Alignment & Spacing:
Her alignment or positioning of information wasn't smooth. She centered her different title headers but then she left aligned everything else. This steady switching back and forth from center to left makes it difficult to follow information. Also, some of the document's left aligned text, specifically her typed areas of achievements under the heading "Summary of Qualifications" and the information listed under the heading "Selected Accomplishments" should've been indented slightly to show its relationship to the information before it and she should've also used bullets to help make this bond even clearer.Excessive Bolding:
The author of this resume took advantage of Microsoft Word's bolding feature way too much. She should've reserved bolding for items that were important or deserved more notice on the page. If you quickly refer back to her resume, you'll notice that the applicant bolded her name, the numerous subheadings, names of companies that she worked at, cities, states, dates of employment, job titles and even the word diploma.Sloppy Setup & Vague Dates:
Also, this writer neglected to keep information that should've stayed to one line just to one line. If you refer back to her resume once again, you'll notice that she inadvertently allowed the dates of her employment to separate. The "From" years and "To" years ended up on different lines. Also, she's very vague in her employment dates. She simply writes, "AXIUS/PENNZOIL, Jackson, MS.............1998 - 2002." The reader really can't get a true sense how much time she put in with this employer because the applicant intentionally omitted the months. So from what's on the resume, we can't really tell if she started work with the company early in 1998 or later that same year.Excessive Capitalization:
Another mistake that the writer made was that she overused CAPS. She typed her name in all CAPS. She typed the different sub-headers in all CAPS and she also typed each company's name in all CAPS. There was just way too much use of the computer's CAPS and bolding features.Please review resume #3 before you continue reading the very next paragraph. To view the actual resume, please click on the following link: Valerie Hernandez's resume.
Resume #3: Reviewing Problem Areas
Position Desired Not Needed: What was the whole point of this heading, "POSITION DESIRED, home-based employment"? Did this heading or rather statement really add any value to the document? Definitely not. If anything this looks more like a weak derivative of the typical objective statement. If the writer would've spent just two or three short sentences to modestly state the type of job she wanted and also what her career objective was by landing the position, the top half of her document would've read more smoothly and also hopefully given her reader the welcome impression that the document belonged to someone possessing halfway decent writing skills.
Resume #3: Valerie Hernandez
(top resume portion)
Hopefully, by this compressed illustration and the previous one, you can see why I routinely urge jobseekers not to use objective statements. It's better to have no statement at all than to have one that draws attention to your obvious misunderstanding of the statement's purpose.
No Examples of Experience:
This was the very first time I had ever encountered a resume where the job applicant decided not to bother listing one single piece of information concerning her duties with previous employers. This candidate was definitely more enthralled with the different organizations she belonged to than what she actually achieved working for each employer.Educational Status Ambiguous:
Another mistake that Ms. Hernandez made was the fact that she apparently hadn't bothered to update her resume since sometime in 2000. In the left-hand margin, right beside the school's name, she typed 1997-2000 and then directly underneath it she typed, "Current Standing: Junior." This passage I assume was used to convey her current status in school. Well, unfortunately, her resume and application was received in 2003, which makes the information that she provided here inconsistent with the actual receipt date of her resume. The resume screener has no way of determining what Ms. Hernandez's actual status is at Jackson State University.Fuzzy Employment Dates:
She was also extremely vague in employment dates. Similar to our earlier candidate, Candice Ryan, this candidate also decided to leave out months in the experience section, but this one did us one even better, she also decided not to bother providing years either. My only guess here is that this is probably a job applicant that worked for employers during the summers and she was afraid highlighting only 2 or 3 months of employment would hinder her chances of obtaining a job interview.Non-Essential Memberships:
Nobody cares that Ms. Hernandez was a member of her highschool tennis team or a co-captain of her school's flag team. This information is non-essential and proves useless to any hiring person trying to seriously determine if this candidate can perform the duties of the job she's applying for.Note About Memberships:
However, there are instances where memberships or involvement with particular school organizations can prove to be useful on a resume especially for first-time jobseekers. Many of the skills that students acquire working for campus-based committees can be transferred or used again when holding down positions for their new employers. So instead of Ms. Hernandez just listing that she was president and secretary of the Foreign Language Honor Society, she should've offered more details about these position. She could've listed duties performed in her role serving as these committee heads. Specifically, she could've highlighted past job duties that were perhaps transferable to the position she was considering.Vague About Skills:
Since Ms. Hernandez was applying for a position as an Office Support Specialist, it would've been extremely helpful if she would've taken the time to list what type of actual computer skills she possessed rather than just typing, "proficient in the use of various word processing programs." If she would've noted she was skilled at using Microsoft Word, Excel and or PowerPoint, this would've definitely been a lot more useful in determining if she could perform the duties of an Office Support Specialist.Poor Spacing & Formatting:
Her format and overall structural spacing was poor. She increased her indentations on some lines more so than others which gave her resume a choppy, ill-organized appearance. Even a person not the least bit trained in creating resumes, could tell that this is a resume that is just poorly put together.Too Much White Space: This document looks painfully empty. To help make the resume look fuller, Ms. Hernandez could've provided more details about employers and the schools that she attended. Instead of just typing that she worked at Dairy Queen or at the Lady Foot Locker, she could've also provided her employers' street addresses. While it would've only added a bit more typed text to the page, it would've still helped make the document look modestly fuller.
References Not Needed: She definitely didn't need the "References" item at the bottom. She probably threw this in to help extend her information further down the page, which instead, again, could've been accomplished more wisely by listing what her important duties were with each employer.
Wrapping Things Up
Did I hear you say enough already? You get the picture already? Well, good. I hope what you've just read will help you substantially as you sit down to write your own resume. Hopefully, because you've had the opportunity to examine three bad resumes up close and also had the chance to analyze and dissect each resume's problem areas, you won't repeat these writers' same unfortunate mistakes.
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is © 2003-2004 by Tracy
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