3 Ridiculous Mistakes Candidates Commit While Preparing their Resume
How many of you know the role of a Resume in a job interview?
Most first time job seekers think that the role of a Resume is to
get them a job.
No!!!
That’s far from the truth. Even though a Resume is required to get
a job, the role of a Resume is not to get you a job.
The role of a Resume is to get you an appointment with the
interviewer. To get you qualified to attend a job interview.
That’s it!
When you send your Resume through email, depending on how you have
presented yourself in your Resume you may be shortlisted for an interview or
you may be rejected.
And also: When you attend a walk-in job interview you are expected
to walk in with a proper Resume.
You will never get an appointment letter just because you have
sent in your Resume.
This is very important for the first time job seekers to
understand.
Unfortunately, many first time job seekers don’t understand
that Resume is not just a few pages of printout, it is a document that
works as a marketing material for them.
Result?
They don’t take their Resume sincerely and seriously. They don’t
invest time preparing it, reviewing it and finalizing it.
It’s high time a job seeker understands the value of the
presentation of his Resume.
How Well You Prepare Your
Resume Tells How Dedicated You Are To Your Career.
Let’s dive right into the blog and understand the three silly
mistakes a candidate makes in his Resume that destroys his first impression.
Grab a diary and a pen. You may need to take good notes.
3 Ridiculous Mistakes A Candidate Commits in His Resume
1. He Writes Things In His Resume that He Is Not:
Within minutes your interviewer can make out whether you have
copied your Resume or it’s your own creation. All he has to do is look at the
language and ask a couple of questions.
For example, a candidate mentions that his strength is that he is
a ‘Team Player’. But when the interviewer asks him a question on being a team
player he goes blank.
Another point I would like to underline here is that many
candidates use sophisticated English words like resilient or assiduous under
the sub-heading of Strengths. When the interviewer asks the meaning of the word
the candidate becomes speechless.
This clearly tells the interviewer that the candidate sitting
across has not invested time in preparing the Resume and also for the job
interview.
2. He Writes Something In His Resume Just Because He Has to Fill a Format:
Your Resume is not just filling in a template with best possible
answers. Do you even know what you are writing?
Some candidates take the format or template of a Resume and start
filling it without understanding. They just copy paste from their friend’s
Resume or from a website. They don’t understand the meaning or the context in
which the statement has been made from where they are copying.
In some extreme cases I have also seen candidates take a
professional email from the internet, just change their personal information
and keep everything the same.
One of the most common examples of being careless in preparing a Resume
is ‘Career Objective’. The candidate doesn’t understand the meaning of the two
words – ‘Career’ and ‘Objective’. He just blindly copies it from the internet
and pastes it in his Resume. If there is a spelling mistake in the original
content, the same spelling mistake is visible in the Resume too.
Reading the career objective and listening to the candidate, the
interviewer immediately comes to know that the candidate has copy pasted it
from the internet.
3. He Takes a Printout or Sends as an attachment in an email Without Checking His Resume for Spelling Mistakes:
Most of the candidates are too lazy to review their Resumes. They
think that whatever they have written is all correct. This small ‘not reviewing
habit’ of their Resume can leave a wrong impression on the interviewer.
It’s obvious that if a candidate didn’t have time to prepare his
Resume, he will also not be prepared for the job interview.
Not only spelling mistakes, you could do some silly mistakes too.
Like, instead of writing your 10-digit mobile number, you may skip one digit
and only write 9 digits. Or, you may write your email id that has a spelling
mistake.
I have seen candidates coming to attend job interviews scheduled
at ten and crowding at the printout shop at nine-thirty to take printouts of
their Resume.
For candidates appearing for a job interview is one of the most important
moments of their lives. That also they push it for the last moment.
This leads to yet another mistake that they overlook.
Here, I would like to add that overlooked mistake as it's
crucial in creating a first impression.
4. He Takes a Printout of his Resume Which is Shabby, Unaligned and even Faded:
I have seen such Resumes many times during my interaction with
candidates who come for a job interview.
I have to address this negligence on the part of the candidate as
this is very important.
If you are a first time job seeker and are reading this, then I
would like to talk to you directly.
Listen, the shop from where you take the printout doesn’t care
that it's your Resume, something of value. For him it is just a piece of
printed paper.
And also, nowadays the printout cost has reduced a lot. Some
places it is as cheap as one rupee per page. The printout cost being so cheap
the candidates also don’t care whether the printout is proper or not. They
accept whatever is handed over to them.
This also sends a message to the interviewer that the candidate
doesn’t value what is important for him in a job interview process.
The candidate should understand that the value of that printed
page is not one rupee. The cost for the printout may be one rupee but the value
of the printed paper is so much that it can get you hired or rejected.
And also: Before the interviewer reads your Resume he is going to
see your Resume and if doesn’t like what he sees on the paper in his mind he
will reject you.
When I ask the candidate during an interview why the printout was
not aligned or why it was shabby, the candidate puts the blame on the
shopkeeper and says that the shopkeeper only gave me this kind of printout.
Remember…
If you can’t get for yourself a neatly printed Resume how will you
do a job properly? It’s all about habit.
So that was 3+1 Ridiculous Mistakes a job seeking candidate
commits while preparing his Resume.
This is not a complete list. There are many mistakes that a
candidate commits when it comes to preparing a Resume that can impress the
interviewer. I wanted to keep this blog short so that it can help the readers
remember and not commit these mistakes in future.
In the coming blogs I will cover more on this topic.
In fact, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you
that I write a lot on interviewing and hiring skills on this blog. So if you
are a person preparing for job interviews make sure you bookmark my website and
make it a daily habit of reading one blog every day that will give you deep
insights and tools required to crack the job interview.
How to Take This Forward?
Understand the fact that your Resume has the power to showcase
your talent and help you get hired in your dream job.
I repeat: Your Resume is your Marketing Material that
you send out to land a job interview.
Spend some quality time working on each and every aspect of your
Resume. Put yourself in the shoes of the interviewer and ask yourself - ‘If
I received this Resume will I call this candidate for a job interview?’
If you find it difficult to judge your Resume, ask someone who is
better qualified to judge your Resume. Don’t be shy or afraid to reach out to
qualified people for help.
“Don’t try to cut short your time on preparing
your Resume because in the form of your Resume you are writing your near future.”
~ Rakesh Prasad
I wish you all the best in your journey to get hired in your dream
job.
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