Top Ten Reasons the Format of Your Resume Determines Employment or Unemployment

With technology increasing exponentially, today’s recruiting tools have come a long way in the past 10 years. Whether you are applying to technology recruiting firms or directly to clients, those who are collecting resumes look for the cleanest and most well represented resumes they can find. That is because most recruiters use software tools to capture and store resumes into a database. If your resume is not formatted to allow the computer software to “parse” (sort) the relevant information then you run the risk of being overlooked.

A clean resume in a text or word document will always receive more attention so more times than not, keeping it simple instead of utilizing the “latest and greatest” tools will lead to more success on the job hunt.

With that being said, resumes are excluded for multiple reasons.

1) Resumes sent as PDFs are hard to import to a database because they are difficult to parse – inedible.
2) Resumes with Graphics, Character icons and Tables are very hard to manipulate into a cleaner version and will take the recruiter or company time to edit the resume into uniform content. Hence, these resume will sometimes be excluded because they become an “eye sore” for the recruiter or company when in reality, the resume could very well be a match for a certain position.
3) Present a resume that showcases too many skills that are transferable to too many positions making you look less focused and generic.
4) Length is critical~ managers manage and workers perform tasks, hence the higher the position you seek the longer your resume should be and vice versa.
5) A resume is a marketing tool and not an employment history per say. The resume reader needs to visualize what you are bringing to the table.
6) Spell checking is extremely important but trusting software to do the job could result in the error in the selection of words just as the fact that a wrong word, spelled correctly, has been used in a particular section. A great method to remedy this is to read the document aloud or allow another set of eyes to check for errors.
7) Another killer is making it easy for any resume reader to estimate your age (including the years you attended college or providing employment data older than 10 years). Leave that information out.
8) Any qualified professional should be able to address periods of unemployment, self employment or stay at home work.
9) Order of data: Some individuals with outstanding academic credentials tend to bury them at the end of the resume document (as if they were without value to the candidate.) Selecting the order of material on the resume is critical. Your academic credentials should be at the forefront of your resume.
10) Inconsistent fonts make it difficult for a reader to assess your information. Sending a resume in a stable/reliable font will make for a clean resume and will be looked at with more clarity intensity that could lead to successful employment.

Take time to make your resume simple – Imagine you are explaining what you do to a teenager with very little attention span. Electronic record keeping means you must present clear, concise information in a format that will be sorted both by a software package and a recruiter / hiring manager with very little time to review your experience.

Follow the old adage KISS – “Keep It Simple Student”