6 Reasons Why Your Resume Is Going Straight To The Trash

6 Reasons Why Your Resume Is Going Straight To The Trash

Have you ever wondered what happens to your resume after you’ve dropped it off with a recruiter at a job fair or emailed it to a recruiter?  Sometimes, really good things happen.  If you’ve managed to make a connection with the recruiter at a job fair, your resume gets placed in one pile.

They can’t wait to call you in and get to learn a little more about you.  On the other hand, your resume may end up in another pile with other resumes that probably won’t make it out of that job fair. From the moment a recruiter looks at your resume, they know within 9 seconds if they’re going to call you in for another interview

Here are the top reasons why your resume goes straight to the trash.

1.  Your cover letter  is clearly a form letter that you’re mass-mailing - Worse yet, it doesn’t even remotely relate to the position that you’re applying for.  The letter is generic and displays no sign that the you bothered to read the job posting.

2.  Your E-mail displays your name as “Sexy Thang11”  or some other crazy name.  This is no exaggeration.  Before we offend anyone, I am sure you may have some people that can vouch for your sexiness, but a potential employer shouldn’t be that person.

Take the time to open another more professional email address.  Justin already brought sexy back, you don’t need to help him.

3.  Your resume and/or cover letter has spelling errors or typos.  If your communication skills aren’t polished when you are trying to put your best foot forward, they definitely won’t be if you get the job.  If you can afford to do so, hire a professional resume writer to at the very least critique your resume.

It shouldn’t cost as much as a full rewrite and you will at least have another set of eyes look at your resume.  At bare minimum have someone proof read your resume and cover letter.

4.  Your resume lists an objective totally unrelated to the position you’re applying for.  If you are applying for a communications position, should your objective state that you are looking for a position in finance?  Absolutely not! Again, this is showing the recruiter that you’re not taking the time to either update your resume or read through the job posting.  Both are huge red flags.

5. The job requires a particular type of experience that you don’t have. Sure you could learn on the job, but if you don’t explain in your cover letter why you’re applying for the position without explaining the lack of experience that is needed, you are dead in the water.

6.  You’re overqualified and didn’t address this in your cover letter. Being overqualified doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. If you address this early on in your cover letter, you can explain how your particular skill sets can be an asset to the organization.

To ensure your resume doesn’t end up in the garbage or shredded, take the time to make sure your resume and cover letter are customized for the position that you are applying for.

These rules have been in place forever, but you would be amazed at some of the resumes we’ve seen at some of the events we host.

Remember,  a resume’s sole purpose is to get you an interview.  Give yourself a fighting chance to get to that stage so that your winning personality can shine through.