Why I Didn’t Read Your Résumé
When you’re searching for a job, not much is more frustrating than submitting your résumé for a job that you know you can do, and then never hearing back from the company. You’re left wondering why. Wonder no more. I’m going to tell you the five reasons why I didn’t read your résumé.
Reason Number One
Of the five reasons why I didn’t read your résumé, this is the one that stands out as the most egregious offender.
Mistakes
When I talk about mistakes, I’m not thinking of formatting errors or even punctuation errors. Although they are technically considered mistakes, they’re not as offensive as misused words, poor sentence structure, or the worst—misspelled words.
Reason Number Two
This one is almost excusable, but the key in that statement is almost. With a little research or an effort to seek advice from someone who knows, this mistake could be prevented. What mistake am I talking about?
Capitalization Mistakes
Capitalization mistakes have become rampant in recent years and it’s getting worse. What harm is it? When you read dozens if not hundreds of résumés per day, it makes a résumé damn difficult to read when too many words are capitalized. I did a previous post on capitalization that addresses this.
Reason Number Three Why I Didn’t Read Your Résumé
I never saw it. Don’t laugh. Unless you hand-delivered it, there is a probable chance that this reason is valid. Most companies use an ATS (applicant tracking systems )to screen all initial résumés. The reason they do that is to save time because they get so many submissions. I did a post on ATS a few years ago. You can see it here.
Read this other article. It will clue you in on how to beat the ATS by using appropriate keywords.
Reason Number Four
I grew tired of trying to decipher your meaning due to all the misused words. You may not think one or two words that are slightly misused would matter, but they do.
Misused Words
Some of these are not horrendous errors, but after you’ve seen so many, even one is bad. An example is the misuse of the word “lead” for the past tense “led”. Believe it or not, I found that mistake on almost 30% of the résumés examined. Another common mistake is mixing tenses.
Reason Number Five
This may be as bad a mistake as number one. After spending all day reading résumés, the last thing you want to do is read one that only lists responsibilities.
Résumés That List Only Responsibilities or Predominantly Responsibilities
I know that listing responsibilities on your résumé seems important to you, but I’ve got news for you—no one else cares. You can be responsible for anything. It doesn’t mean you were any good at it. Résumé screeners want to know what you did—what you accomplished. They don’t care what you were responsible for. To read more about this, go to this blog.
The Bottom Line
If you’re sitting around wondering why no one has called you in for an interview, look no further than your résumé. The chances are, the résumé is to blame.
By the way, if you really want to improve your language skills, try out my No Mistakes Grammar books, in particular Misused Words for Business. It has a section dedicated to business redundancies, of which there are many.
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Giacomo Giammatteo is the author of gritty crime dramas about murder, mystery, and family. And he also writes nonfiction books including the No Mistakes Careers series as well as books about grammar, publishing., and children’s fiction and nonfiction.
When Giacomo isn’t writing, he’s helping his wife take care of the animals on their sanctuary. At last count, they had forty animals—seven dogs, one horse, six cats, and twenty-five pigs.
Oh, and one crazy—and very large—wild boar, who used to take walks with Giacomo every day.
He lives in Texas where he and his wife have an animal sanctuary with forty-five loving “friends.”
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