Resume Killer
What Are The Biggest Resume Killers?
Resumes are complicated—at least that’s what many people think. But in reality, they are one of the simplest documents to write. Despite being simple, a lot of resumes from qualified people end up in the trash. Why? Sometimes it’s a single item, at other times it’s a cumulative effect. But there is one component on every resume that is misused, overused, irritating…and yet most people fill their resumes with this nonsense.
What nonsense, you ask?
Responsibilities. And I’ve got news for you…
No One Cares What You’re Responsible For
I know what you’re thinking, that a resume has to have responsibilities. But it doesn’t. I don’t mean you have to purge every one of them from your document as if they were infected cells, but you should do a thorough review and get rid of most of them. I received a resume the other day that was five pages long. After I removed the responsibilities, it was only one and a half pages. Not only did we cut it down to a readable size, it greatly improved the resume, letting the accomplishments take their proper place and be the focus of the document.
How do you expect a gatekeeper to figure out what you can do if you fill the page with responsibilities? That tells them nothing. So why do people fill the resume with responsibilities?
People Think They’re Important
That sounds callous, but it’s true. People think that because their name is at the top of the page that the resume is about them. It’s not. A resume’s job is to get you an interview. That’s it. Period. End of story. And citing page after page of responsibilities is not the way to do it. I want you to take a minute and think about the following.
- My teenage son was responsible for cleaning his room.
- Richard Nixon was responsible for running the country.
- Steve Ballmer was responsible for making a tablet and phone to compete with Apple and Android.
- General George Armstrong Custer was responsible for 700 soldiers and charged with winning the Battle of Little Bighorn.
- “Hollywood” is responsible for producing good movies.
I think most of us can relate to at least some of these. Now let’s look at some real responsibilities and the analysis that follows.
- Implemented quality systems throughout the company to ensure compliance.
- The problem with that is we don’t know if those quality systems worked, or if they actually ensured compliance. They could have failed miserably.
- Responsible for worldwide quality, production, materials management, and facilities.
- Have no idea if this person did any good.
- Management of high-performing development teams up to 25 full-time employees.
- Did this team do anything good? Who said they were high performing? Did this person need 25 people and were they productive? Lots of questions, no answers.
- Coordinated product development activities between European and US divisions.
- And how did this turn out?
As you can see, responsibilities tell us nothing. All they do is fill up space on your resume and, as we all know, the last thing you want is something unnecessary taking up resume space.
What Do You Do?
If you feel an urgent need to list a responsibility, do it in a manner that is effective. If the company needs someone to expand their new mobile phones into the European market, don’t list all of your responsibilities; instead, create one responsibility that captures the heart of that need.
- Responsible for building an international team of six sales reps to introduce new smartphone into the European and Russian markets.
After that, go straight into your accomplishments. And make sure you quantify them.
Bottom Line
I’m not saying it’s impossible to get called for an interview with all those unnecessary responsibilities, but if the gatekeeper has a long list of strong candidates, you probably won’t make the cut. A week or two from now, you’ll be wondering why you haven’t been called for an interview, never suspecting your resume is the culprit.
If you liked this post, you might want to check out my resume/cover letter book, No Mistakes Resumes.
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