20 things about your resume that annoy recruiters and HR people

September 3rd, 2008 by dave

Here are the top 20 things that annoy and irritate recruiters and other people who read resumes. And FYI, annoying people who could hire you isn’t a good idea.

From ResumeDoctor.com:

“ResumeDoctor.com undertook the immense project of conducting a survey of over 2,500 recruiters / headhunters throughout the US and Canada to find out their “Pet Peeves” with resumes. These recruiters stemmed from varied specialties and industries, (Engineering, Information Technology, Sales and Marketing, Executive, Biotech, Healthcare, Administrative, Finance, etc.). ResumeDoctor.com sought to find out what the recruiter’s likes and dislikes in a resume and what is going to get a resume read by them.”

Click on each item for more details.

  1. Spelling Errors, Typos and Poor Grammar
  2. Too duty oriented - reads like a job description, failing to explain the job seeker’s relevant accomplishments
  3. Missing dates or inaccurate dates
  4. Missing contact Info, inaccurate, or unprofessional email addresses
  5. Poor formatting - boxes, templates, tables, use of header and footers, etc.
  6. Resumes organized by job function as opposed to chronological by employer
  7. Long resumes - greater than 2 pages
  8. Long, dense paragraphs - no bullet-points
  9. Unqualified candidates - candidates who apply to positions for which they are not qualified
  10. Personal info not relevant to the job
  11. Missing employer Info and/or not indicating what industry in which the candidate worked
  12. Lying and misleading - especially in terms of education, dates and inflated titles
  13. Objectives and meaningless introductions
  14. Poor font choice or style
  15. Resumes sent as PDF files, Zip files, faxes, or mailed resumes; i.e. not sent as a WORD attachment
  16. Irritating Pictures, graphics or URL links
  17. No easy-to-follow summary of skills and accomplishments
  18. Resumes written with 1st person references, or in the 3rd person
  19. Unexplained gaps in employment
  20. Burying important info in the resume

Leave a Reply

Open in New Window Return To Page