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Why a boring resume yields best results follow this blog post

posted by on June 17, 2009

A boring resume? These are tough times and job seekers need to stand out in the crowd within this competitive marketplace. Yes, but they must also get through the crowd with a well written resume. The following emphasizes how a boring yet content rich resume will yield best results leading to more interviews and offers.

  • Your resume must be easy to read and will be judged by a combination of humans and Applicant Tracking Systems.
  • Your resume content is most important and must be displayed in the correct places.
  • It is easy for a resume screener to hit the delete button based upon distractions and nuances.
  • A well written resume gives the impression you are a top candidate, knowledgeable, and easy to work with

How will I stand out from the crowd with a boring resume? Companies, search firms, and HR departments use Applicant Tracking Systems as part of the resume screening process. ATS's use boolean search strings and keyword matching technologies to score how well your resume matches specific search criteria set for a position. So your resume is screened by a combination of computer and human judgment. A human recruiter will quickly scan your resume in 5-10 seconds to find out the following info:

  • Career history containing your last 2-3 jobs, dates of employment, job titles, and responsibilities
  • Your education background including your degrees and schools attended
  • A quick snapshot of your skills, experiences, certifications, and awards

Your resume content is the meat which drives the decision determining if your resume fits the criteria of a job listing. Your career history must contain accurate and easy to read descriptions of your positions integrating as many relevant keywords within the context of well written sentences.

How can I build a boring/content rich resume?

1. MS Word doc only! MS Word doc files are the standard and easiest for Applicant Tracking Systems to upload and parse.
2. List your resume reverse chronologically - Most recent positions on top
3. One font throughout your resume - Arial, Times New Roman, Georgia, and Garamond are best
4. Black font color only
5. 10pt, 11pt, or 12pt font size only. Stick with one font size throughout your entire resume.
6. Let your resume flow to 2-3 pages if you have the experience (usually 10+ years or more)
7. List all start and end dates for your positions in the Month, Year format (ex. January, 2006 to June, 2009)
8. Optimize your resume content by including as many keywords relating to your skills, experiences, technologies, or activities you have worked with.
9. Proofread. Every text editor, MS Word, and Google Docs all have built in Spell Checkers. There are no excuses for typos!
10. Links to your professional blog or Twitter page to promote your personal brand. Only if you are 100% sure the content is professional.
11.  Optimize your resume (coming soon) with ResuWe at http://www.resuwe.com

Job seekers today need an edge to grab the attention of hiring managers, recruiters, and HR professionals. Adding extraneous info, flashy borders, tables, or photos is not the best way to gain positive attention. Hiring managers, recruiters, and HR professionals are challenged with the task of weeding through hundreds of resumes per multiple jobs a day. They look at any distracting elements with scrutiny and interpret any nuances as a reason you are detracting from the content of your resume. A resume screener is looking for any reason to reject your candidacy and a video, text box, or blue font is an easy reason to hit the reject button.

What will get my resume deleted?

1. Multiple fonts and font colors
2. Headers and footers - This messes with HTML which Word resumes are often converted to within an ATS
3. Tables, text boxes, and divider bars
4. Multiple columns
5. Page borders
6. Backgrounds
7. Photos, videos, or images - Many companies have policies not to accept resume photos for EEOC compliance reasons.
8. Hobbies, interests, or activities
9. Page breaks mentioning "continued" or "resume continued next page".
10. Providing just a web-link instead of a Word document. Most Applicant Tracking Systems require resumes be uploaded from a Word doc.

A well written resume gives the impression you are a top candidate, knowledgeable, and easy to work with. Your content should drive excitement from an employer and turn your resume submission into an interview. Good luck!

 

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12 comments

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  • 1 point 5 months ago

    Great stuff here, Jeff.  A few thoughts to add:

    "8. Optimize your resume content" - while this is solid advice, since I recruit in IT, occasionally I'll see something like these no-no's:

    "CCNA certified, working towards CCNP, CCDP, CCIE, CISSP," etc. etc. etc.  (way to cover your search criteria bases here.  Good news, you're at the top.  Bad news, it's the top of the reject pile.)

    CCIE written complete, lab expected in June 2008.  (you couldn't at least update the expected date to make it look like you're still trying?)

    People who list their MCSE (Microsoft) certification, only to discover it's the NT 4.0 version (semi-impressive in 1997, not so much now). 

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    And please include a cover email briefly describing what type of position is being sought so the resume doesn't require opening to determine if it's an accountant or a human resources executive.  Resumes attached to blank emails are not professional and indicate a mass mailing rather than a targeted, considered search.  If your resume is rejected by the ATS, it will require a human review, so always consider that audience. 

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    Also think about storage, make it and you findable. Forget file names e.g. "resume" JB's resume.  Do everyone a favor and use this title for the file  lastname firstname yymmdd   

    in it make yourself findable. I still get a fair # of resumes with no snail mail address (likely fear of being disqualified due to commute or relo considerations), preferred email address, land line phone # and if applicable a cell #

    email addresses use something professional rather than hottie@gmail  and along those lines consider setting up a mailbox just for job hunting, career related contacts

     

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    Yes! resumes should be simple and clear. Resume should be a messenger of your talents and should show the reason why you are fit for position.

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    Good information! 

    1) MS Word doc only! MS Word doc files are the standard and easiest for Applicant Tracking Systems to upload and parse.

    If the resume is being put into an on-line internet based ATS system a text resume  (resume.txt) is best, especially if it is for cut and paste. Candidates should have at least 2 versions -text and word.doc.

    I still have people with 10+ years of experience thinking that a one page resume is "correct".  I always tell them the same thing - you have to put some "meat" in there or it will be missed.

    The biggest mistake I see is that candidates don't include what they accomplished.  I don't need a job description, I want to know why my hiring manager would want you on the team - i.e. save money, increase productivity, reduce waste, improve quality, etc. with $ figures and other quanitiative examples - that is what will generate interest once it gets to them.

     

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    Why MS Word? Plain text works even better.

    First readers of your resume are bots (job boards, search engine crawlers, database search indexes, search queries, and more sophisticated resume search algrithms). If they don't recognize the value of your resume -- nothing else matters.

    That's why plain text version works the best.

    Later on if recruiter wants to present your resume to the client she will ask you to send her copy of your resume in MS Word format. But initial version should be in plain text (which is easily extracted by using cut&paste from MS Word document).

     

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    THANK YOU for this article - I spend so much time with my Masters and MBA students trying to explain this and they spend so much time tweaking their resumés to get them visually exciting - that they forget the essential CONTENT. May I pass it on to them?

     

     

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    Absolutely!  Also, if you are able, please link www.resuwe.com from your site to help your students optimize their resume.  We're due to release the ResuWe site in a few months.  Thanks!  Jeff

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    How:

    1) True. Pdf works too, but only if in a text format and without graphic design (pure text). Forget about anyother format.

    2) Yes, stay in the norm

    3) Yes, same font is better

    4) Black or dark grey

    5) to me 10pt is too small. 11 and 12 are good

    6) Yes, one page for recent graduate and no more than 3 or 4 pages overall. Of course as long as I can find the information I want in no more than 1 second !!

    7) yes better for ATS

    8) EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. Also mention the industry descriptions and the products of each of your previous employers.

    9) Of course !!

    10) Yes and keep in mind we'll check it only if your resume is good enough for us to want to know more.

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    How then would you recommend that candidates make available their work products and video messages, as is being incoporated into Visual CV and the Cisco channel partner talent portal? And a small point, spell checkers don't catch all spelling and gramatical errors. "Fresh pair of eyes" proofing is needed for that.

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    You simply write the resume as described which in my experience is dead on.  Instead of embedding all of the excess in the e-mail just send something simple to get the phone call.  Then you can invite your interviewer to view your online visual CV or ask them if you can send the additional content via e-mail.

    The age of security is upon you so in order to get through the gate you have to leave your special stuff on the other side and then simply ask us to look over the fence at it.

  • 1 point 5 months ago

    I do agree 100% with Thomas. Get a simple first good impression and then show your extra stuff. The first selection is done in a few seconds on your resume and only if it gets through our Applicant Tracking System. Forget about the link to you on-line resume. It won't be read.