Are most people's resumes just bad?

I've been frequenting the resume boards on Monster.com and if they are any real indication of anything, I would have to say that most people's resumes are...terrible. It's really kind of sad.

The things I see that make them bad could easily be improved if the person would just take a little bit of time to do some reading and researching on resumes. That's what's amazing to me.
Poor grammar and spelling are big problems too.

It just makes me wonder about how many awful resumes employers get! :)

I'd imagine bad grammar and spelling would be a red flag (and a turn off) for employers trying to hire employees.

I have been a Human Resources Professional for over 10 years and have to say that the majority of the resumes that come across my desk are subpar. I strongly believe that, even if we write well, have great grammar, etc, etc. we are not objective enough to review our own resumes.

Linda is absolutely correct. Not only are poor grammar and spelling red flags, they increase the likelihood that your resume will not even make it past the HRIS screening systems that many companies are using.

I strongly suggest that one's resume needs to be reviewed by an objective person, whether it be a resource like the one I provide or a trusted professional contact.

K.C.
www.Tandemresumes.com

Thanks Tony. I have read those tips. Good stuff.

K.C. & Linda...thanks for your comments.

I just have been amazed at the resumes that people have put up on sites so they can get feedback. People will describe themselves with all sorts of exaggerated adjectives, especially complimenting themselves on their communication skills, yet their resumes are filled with poor sentences, incorrect grammar and spelling errors.

Like I said, it just makes me wonder what those who hiring have to look at! Yuck. No wonder a nice, clean layout and good spelling makes a resume stand out.

domino in Virginia said: Thanks Tony. I have read those tips. Good stuff.

K.C. & Linda...thanks for your comments.

I just have been amazed at the resumes that people have put up on sites so they can get feedback. People will describe themselves with all sorts of exaggerated adjectives, especially complimenting themselves on their communication skills, yet their resumes are filled with poor sentences, incorrect grammar and spelling errors.

Like I said, it just makes me wonder what those who hiring have to look at! Yuck. No wonder a nice, clean layout and good spelling makes a resume stand out.

From my point of view, a lot of sites don't allow you to post a resume the way it was intended to be read. Monster and Hotjobs, I think, have gotten better about this. I uploaded my Word resume. Careerbuilder does not seem to allow you do that, so I have a text resume posted. Many other sites are this way to. I've been out of work here in Southern Cal since last August and since I had my resume done professionally several months back, I have been getting in-person interviews and phone screens. However, no offers (yet). For what it is worth: www.paul-hughes.net

You can't upload anything formatted in a table on CareerBuilder. CareerBuilder apparently does not recognize tables. It forces you to set up a separate section for that material. CareerBuilder won't let you post in HTML format, so all you get it bland text.

You can upload your resume on Monster, but you will likely have to tweak it a bunch before it approaches the appearance you intended for it.

Without question, resume writers produce wonderful product, but a professional should be able to self-produce his/her own resume. It's part of a professional's toolkit. Moreover, struggling with the introspection and brutal honesty necessary to produce your own resume has its benefits. It lays an excellent generally foundation for interviews and is more likely to capture the real you, not a resume writer's potentially exaggerated misconception of you.

Tony Beshara is all wrong to recommend a chronological format as the ONLY resume format to use.

For one thing, if you haven't worked in a while, a chronological format calls attention to the fact you haven't worked. Most HR coneheads assume a person has not been hired because that person has a problem(s) that precludes his/her hiring. The idiots don't consider that events beyond candidates' control could cause lengthy unemployment periods.

Examples of these events include but are not limited to illness, addressing health problems that were delayed because of work, taking time off to raise a family, taking care of an ill family member, other family or personal obligations, school, military service in Iraq or Afghanistan, taking time off simply to recoup, or simply not being available to work.

By the same token, a chrono resume calls attention to an unstable work history. For many people that cannot be helped but they want to make amends. For years, employment has been an exclusionary process and not an inclusionary process. HR looks for ways to deny candidates interviews and not ways to give them interviews. Why give the idiots an easy way to exclude you?

Finally, another reason why a chrono format can be ineffective is your last job, which would be listed first, may be irrelevant or immaterial to the work you're seeking. An example would be a legal professional who wants to return to a prior speciality. Or anyone with transferable skills who wants to change careers. In either case, a chrono resume does not sell your skills to their best advantage.

Continued, below....

Continued from above....

A functional resume format solves these problems IMO. A functional resume de-emphasizes employment history, and emphasizes knowledge, skills, abilities and achievements. After all, aren't abilities and competence what employers really want and what we're trying to sell? An employment record is secondary to what we offer employers.

With a functional resume, knowledge, skills and abilities are high on the page and are organized into paragraphs for easy review. HR does not have to jump from job to job to piece together your abilities. A functional resume can be drafted to emphasize particular skills for particular jobs, which benefits career changers. A functional resume eliminates redundancies which may irritate HR.

You would still list employers on your functional resume. Just put them low on the page to de-emphasize them. Hopefully, by the time HR has read through your functional resume, it will be more interested in what you can do for the company and less interested in when and where you have worked.

Below is a link to a functional resume format. I like this format because of how it addresses problems relating to long periods of no employment.

www.bankrate.com/nsc/news/pf/20060517b1.asp

Employment is now a process of "last man standing" instead of "we want you." Don't give companies ammo to shoot your legs from under you.

As a recruiter/resume sourcer, I have worked with Fortune 500 companies and small businesses. I can say from my YEARS of experience that YES most resumes do stink.

domino in Virginia said: I've been frequenting the resume boards on Monster.com and if they are any real indication of anything, I would have to say that most people's resumes are...terrible. It's really kind of sad.

The things I see that make them bad could easily be improved if the person would just take a little bit of time to do some reading and researching on resumes. That's what's amazing to me.
Poor grammar and spelling are big problems too.

It just makes me wonder about how many awful resumes employers get! :)

Beyond misspelling and grammar problems, the biggest problem I see is people's need to confess negatives on a resume ("Fired because my boss was a bigot").

Equally bad is a lack of focus. If I am going to hire you as an accountant, I want to know if you have SOX, Excel and Oracle expertise; I don't care that you were a french fry cook in college.

Letters and resumes should describe, completely yet succinctly, why the employer should hire you. If you don't hire a professional resume writer, at least have a few people who know your career field and industry review it for you.

www.career-hunter.info

Displaced Legal Professional in Denver, Colorado said: Continued from above....

A functional resume format solves these problems IMO. A functional resume de-emphasizes employment history, and emphasizes knowledge, skills, abilities and achievements. After all, aren't abilities and competence what employers really want and what we're trying to sell? An employment record is secondary to what we offer employers.

With a functional resume, knowledge, skills and abilities are high on the page and are organized into paragraphs for easy review. HR does not have to jump from job to job to piece together your abilities. A functional resume can be drafted to emphasize particular skills for particular jobs, which benefits career changers. A functional resume eliminates redundancies which may irritate HR.

You would still list employers on your functional resume. Just put them low on the page to de-emphasize them. Hopefully, by the time HR has read through your functional resume, it will be more interested in what you can do for the company and less interested in when and where you have worked.

As usual, I am in agreement with DLP. For one thing, I think Tony Beshara is a legend in his own mind, and charging job seekers $90 to ask 3 questions is robbery, especially when he is regurgitating misinformation.

Recruiters want job seekers to make it easier for them to earn commissions, and only tangentially are interested in helping the candidate. A chronological resume is what we call a "tombstone resume": Here lies John, salesman, 1983-1997.

A good resume includes skills and education (keywords) relevant to the position, proof of those skills in examples (success stories), and a brief chronology that verifies the skills and puts the preceding in a frame of reference.

The format is simple, determining the content is the real work. A chronological resume is easy but ineffective and makes it easier for a recruiter to see your flaws.

GREAT POST FROM DENVER....JUST BECAUSE ONE HASN'T WORKED THERE MAY HAVE BEEN CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND CONTROL....TOO BAD MOST HR MANAGERS ARE WINGNUTS WITH NO IMAGINATION AND SIMPLY CANNOT REALIZE THAT PEOPLE'S LIVES ARE ALL NOT "COOKIE CUTTER"

Career Hunter in Denver, Colorado: "]Beyond misspelling and grammar problems, the biggest problem I see is people's need to confess negatives on a resume ("Fired because my boss was a bigot")."

Are you serious?? Do people applying to you for professional positions really include such garbage on resumes? Maybe some people really do need help designing resumes.

At the very least, if you must explain away a termination, come up with a less-shrill explanation, even if it is true. :(

"Equally bad is a lack of focus. If I am going to hire you as an accountant, I want to know if you have SOX, Excel and Oracle expertise; I don't care that you were a french fry cook in college."

On the other hand, for a younger applicant just out of college, wouldn't it be a positive that the person worked during that time, and may have paid for some or all of college that way, as opposed to leaving it off and implying, maybe, the person spent off-time drinking beer at the frat house? Of course, a more experienced candidate should not list college work experience on a resume.

I am thinking about changing my resume from a chronological to a functional since I have been out of work for awhile now. The biggest problem I have is the lack of quality jobs in my area. Have there been a few interviews that I have blown?, oh yea there have been a few, not many. But, the BIGGEST problem is the lack of quality jobs where I live, they talk about it in the local newspaper from time to time. "Cookie Cutter" from headhunters to HR's, if they see that you have been out of work for more than 3 months it is for some dopey reason suppose to be a red flag. I don't get it.

Yesterday, I was talking to a headhunter on the phone and he was telling me that that majority of resumes on Careerbuilder are people that don't have a bachelor degree, is this true anyone?

Steve C in North Las Vegas, Nevada: "JUST BECAUSE ONE HASN'T WORKED THERE MAY HAVE BEEN CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND CONTROL....TOO BAD MOST HR MANAGERS ARE WINGNUTS WITH NO IMAGINATION AND SIMPLY CANNOT REALIZE THAT PEOPLE'S LIVES ARE ALL NOT 'COOKIE CUTTER'...."

....or coneheads for the same reason.

Career Hunter in Denver, Colorado: "Recruiters want job seekers to make it easier for them to earn commissions, and only tangentially are interested in helping the candidate. A chronological resume is what we call a 'tombstone resume': Here lies John, salesman, 1983-1997."

LOL! Good comment. I never thought of it that way.

Displaced Legal Professional in Denver, Colorado said: Career Hunter in Denver, Colorado: "]Beyond misspelling and grammar problems, the biggest problem I see is people's need to confess negatives on a resume ("Fired because my boss was a bigot")."

Are you serious?? Do people applying to you for professional positions really include such garbage on resumes? Maybe some people really do need help designing resumes.

At the very least, if you must explain away a termination, come up with a less-shrill explanation, even if it is true. :(

"Equally bad is a lack of focus. If I am going to hire you as an accountant, I want to know if you have SOX, Excel and Oracle expertise; I don't care that you were a french fry cook in college."

On the other hand, for a younger applicant just out of college, wouldn't it be a positive that the person worked during that time, and may have paid for some or all of college that way, as opposed to leaving it off and implying, maybe, the person spent off-time drinking beer at the frat house? Of course, a more experienced candidate should not list college work experience on a resume.

Absolutely! In my experience, interviewers are most interested in what you are doing now, then what you did the last 5 years, a little in the 5 years before that, and hardly at all at anything more than 10 years ago.

For a fresh grad, having ANY experience shows that you can get to work on time and follow instructions, as well as initiative. (I have had fresh grad clients who DIDN'T and man, were those tough resumes to write!)

deansuraci said: I am thinking about changing my resume from a chronological to a functional since I have been out of work for awhile now. The biggest problem I have is the lack of quality jobs in my area. Have there been a few interviews that I have blown?, oh yea there have been a few, not many. But, the BIGGEST problem is the lack of quality jobs where I live, they talk about it in the local newspaper from time to time. "Cookie Cutter" from headhunters to HR's, if they see that you have been out of work for more than 3 months it is for some dopey reason suppose to be a red flag. I don't get it.

Yesterday, I was talking to a headhunter on the phone and he was telling me that that majority of resumes on Careerbuilder are people that don't have a bachelor degree, is this true anyone?

It may or may not be. Headhunters want to tie you up so that someone else doesn't place you at the same time they can't guarantee you a job.

What IS relevant is whether CB has jobs relevant to your career. Use Indeed and SimplyHired.com to search the relevant jobs, and don't waste time on just one board. Many positions are listed only on the employer's website because they don't want to spend $500 to put it on Monster or CareerBuilder.

Displaced Legal Professional in Denver, Colorado said: Steve C in North Las Vegas, Nevada: "JUST BECAUSE ONE HASN'T WORKED THERE MAY HAVE BEEN CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND CONTROL....TOO BAD MOST HR MANAGERS ARE WINGNUTS WITH NO IMAGINATION AND SIMPLY CANNOT REALIZE THAT PEOPLE'S LIVES ARE ALL NOT 'COOKIE CUTTER'...."

....or coneheads for the same reason.

Or lazy salesmen. They eat what they kill, which is a crude way of saying that unless you are edible (easily placeable) they won't bother with you. Recruiters are not your friend. They are conehead salesmen who need to earn commissions as quickly and easily as they can, and they will manipulate candidates to accomplish that.

This recruiter was telling me that most resumes posted are Associate degrees or Trade school certificates, maybe it's just this area (I have a Bachelor).

In any event, I use Monster, Careerbuilder, Regional Help Wanted (a local board), Indeed, and even though it's time-consuming I'll pull the Fortune 500 list and go to each companies careersite and see what jobs they have that are relevant to my background.

Nearly all of the agencies where I reside find job-seekers temp type positions.

I always wonder how this middleman (Headhunter) came into existence? Why did HR fall for these people's sales pitch? I wish all companies would just post their openings themselves and hire themselves. I might add not all Headhunters are bad but when you mix commission sales with alot of competition (competing job agencies that is) it's not a good thing for a job-seeker. I'm rambling I know, it's time for me to go enjoy this day.

You are unethical to shill your blog on these free fora to the detriment of Indeed's paid advertisers.

Writeguy62 in Los Angeles, California said: From my point of view, a lot of sites don't allow you to post a resume the way it was intended to be read. Monster and Hotjobs, I think, have gotten better about this. I uploaded my Word resume. Careerbuilder does not seem to allow you do that, so I have a text resume posted. Many other sites are this way to. I've been out of work here in Southern Cal since last August and since I had my resume done professionally several months back, I have been getting in-person interviews and phone screens. However, no offers (yet). For what it is worth: www.paul-hughes.net

Excellent concept. These resume warehouses that companies have disgust me. A simple one sheet resume on cotton paper or emailed PDF is much more pleasant than having your resume dissected and broken up into character limited force fields that employers desire. There is bad on BOTH the HR side and the employee side. It's really a pathetic exchange that needs much improvement.

What could possibly be a replacement for a resume?

ResumeDoctors in Brisbane, Australia said: The people that have bad resumes don't realize that if they had a good resume they would have a job [alot] quicker.....

At least use correct English if you're going to shill your enterprise on these free fora to the detriment of Indeed's paid advertisers.

I'm a recent graduate trying to find an accounting job. I do agree that many resumes I've seen look like garbage, but the more amazing thing makes me genuinely depressed is that despite these resumes, they managed to have those jobs in the first place. :(

These guys offer a free trial, take a look at their templates and layouts that provide downloads in web, doc and pdf formats.

www.webresumeplace.com

David in Carlsbad, California said: I'm a recent graduate trying to find an accounting job. I do agree that many resumes I've seen look like garbage, but the more amazing thing makes me genuinely depressed is that despite these resumes, they managed to have those jobs in the first place. :(

Sometimes it is who you know. Sad but true.

LindaM in Barrington, Illinois said: Sometimes it is who you know. Sad but true.

Having a great resume is part of the battle. Being an effective networker is another part of getting the job. Think of it as interviewing before the interview.

Additional proof of the level of disgust that I have with HR departments. I sent my resume (last Friday) for a job, admittedly I am overqualified but the job is with a company that has a government contract and the job was a contract job for two years. I like the idea of contract work because honestly, I don't see myself with any company for more than 2 years. I used to believe in all of that...my parents' generation involved doing whatever it is you started at 18 until death. I don't think my generation is like that. Two years is the most I can tolerate at a job because I get bored, get tired of being disrespected at a place, tire of the racism and sexism I face, tire of not being given performances reviews and raises when I am told I would be or advised in writing that I would be and I really really tire of the sexual harassment. I figure every year or two I need a fresh start since the previous place would reach its threshold of harassment.

Anyway, I sent the resume to this job. I get a rude reply back stating the job is level 0 and what do I want from them. Now that is a legitimate question but the tone that was used was accusatory and rude. Then the HR rep asked for all of this information that NO JOB asks for prior to an interview or at least in my experience has never occured. She obviously wanted to offend me so fine. I replied that I never have been asked such information prior to an interview and that I would respectfully like to withdraw my application from the position. Her reply was "Fine..." Who sends a reply like that? I get that the job market is rough but now this has given HR departments free range to be rude and disrespectful as if they didn't have a chip on their shoulder large enough already. She was also offended that I sent my resume as a PDF. Many companies like that, how would I know that would practically emotionally devastate her. Geez.

Youngandweary is in worse shape than me with the attitude. Sounds like he/she is a lot younger than me too. Twenty years ago I lacked the experience. Now I have the experience, I'm pretty good at what I do, but I'm 20 years older. Can't do anything about that. But I can maintain a reasonably upbeat attitude. Presumably, you're only looking for one job, not 20. (Which is what I used to say about girlfriends.) Screw the naysayers - there's one out there.

In answer to this thread's original question, there are a lot of bad resumes out there. I've received resumes from students/graduates from top undergrad and grad programs, and I've been flabbergasted. Likewise, resumes from experienced, extremely qualified employees may not show the skills and experiences needed for transferring to new companies or gaining internal promotions.