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The Most Common Resume Mistake-Your Resume probably has It!

DKrunner | Jun 3, 2010 |

3 Comments | Rating: 2

In my occupation as an employment counselor, I regularly review resumes for job seekers. I commonly see scattered grammatical errors but what stands out to me most is a bit of a missed opportunity on what I feel are strong workplace qualities of the individual that are not being capitalized on. Keep reading to find out if your resume is undermining your skill set and dooming you to the resume misstep that most job seekers make.

Look at resume help online formats; the best resume examples use strong language. After reading this, put a fresh set of eyeballs on your own resume and ask yourself if your language is strong and action oriented.

For example "Office duties included Hiring and payroll" To be in the position of making hiring decisions for a company is no small feat. Finding a way to capitalize on this task will strengthen your resume.

Another example: "Managed field operations" This does not tell me anything about what a potential employee did in their past job. I have no idea what that means, and if an employer is taking the time to read a resume, they are not likely going to be inclined to call one of their many job applicants to find out.

Here's what I suggest; go to O*NET Online. This website is fantastic for fishing out strong keywords that can be added to boost a resume. Once you've got to the website, look to the top right corner where you will see "Occupation Quick Search". If you've had several different roles in your professional career, you will want to enter several of them to get a well rounded base of vocabulary to apply to your resume.

For example, if you type in "supervisors", you will be taken to a list of various types of supervising roles. You would select the one that most closely represents your specific line of work. Once you choose a specific career, you'll see that there is a wealth of strong verbs that you can use in your resume to explain your past professional roles.

Here's an example of the language from "First-Line Supervisors/Managers of Helpers, Laborers, and Material Movers, Hand";

"Plan work schedules and assign duties to maintain adequate staff for effective performance of activities and response to fluctuating workloads.

Evaluate employee performance and prepare performance appraisals."

(From O*NET.com)

The language is much stronger than an oversimplified resume line such as "office duties" or "Supervised group of employees". The best way to do it is to search and select several different roles that most closely describe the jobs that you've held.

Now that you know what strong, action resume language is, look at your own resume. Does it pass the test? It takes some practice and it's important to tailor your resume for every different job that you apply for, but this is a great place to start!