Ask the Career Coach - Resume Dos and Don'ts

What are the biggest do’s and dont’s when writing a resume? 

There is a lot of advice about writing resumes. You will see all sorts of opinions. I will give my opinion, and it is based upon 20+ years as a corporate recruiter. I have seen a lot of resumes in my time. It is hard to limit myself to one in each category, but I am going to try.

Biggest “Do”

The thing that will set you apart more than anything is to include relevant accomplishments in your resume. Write about your results. I know this because as a recruiter, I have looked at thousands of resumes. Very few do this. Most are just a recitation of the job duties. It is as if the person took their job description and bullet-pointed each task or responsibility. 

I remember hiring a customer service representative. It is a position common to many organizations. Most of the job duties are similar; they just focus on a different industry. I read the resumes, and they were all the same - a list of responsibilities such as answering customer service calls, problem-solving issues, and delivering excellent customer service. Yes, I know what a customer service representative does. It wasn’t telling me much about each individual. I had no idea if they were good or bad at the job. Then I read a beautiful resume that said to me that this person was good at their job. How did I know? I saw the accomplishments of this person. She had won awards for customer service because of high customer service scores, had taken on additional duties as a trainer and mentor, and had a 95% resolution rate without needing next level support. 

Guess which person I wanted to interview?

Now it is not enough to just put your accomplishments on a resume. You also need to make sure the achievements are relevant to the job. The three accomplishments noted above were related to what was asked for in the job description. She matched her results to what I stated I was looking for in a candidate. I later learned that she managed a team, but since this job was an individual contributor, she did not put that on the resume as it was not relevant to this particular job. She thought that if she emphasized this, it might not work in her favor, as employers may think she would not be happy in a solo role. For many employers, she guessed correctly. They would have passed on her, since they may have felt that her managerial experience would mean she would want to go back into that type of role, if not now, soon, thus leaving the organization with a vacancy in the near future. 

If you do not have accomplishments listed on your resume, go back and add those relevant to a particular position you aspire to do. This will differentiate you from most of the applicants.

Biggest “Don’t”

Please do not lie on your resume. You may get away with it upon hiring (though doubtful), but it can come back to haunt you big time. Here is a cautionary tale of a person that I knew personally. Growing up, I knew Janet Cooke. She was older than me, and her father and my mother were law school classmates. As such, there were events that I attended to celebrate important occasions with the family. One of those was the college graduation of Janet from a local school. I remember it well, sitting at the very top of the school’s field house. Well, I thought it was curious when many years later, this same Janet Cooke, who had just won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, had in her biography that she graduated from a different school. Well, that was not the only lie she told her employer, The Washington Post. A previous employer also noted discrepancies and brought it to the attention of the Post’s management. Under pressure from The Post, Janet admitted her credentials were inaccurate and that the story she had written, Jimmy’s World, was fabricated. She had to return her Pulitzer Prize. Her lies ended her journalism career.

Nowadays, fabricating an education would be difficult to accomplish. Many companies do background checks, and this can include jobs held but also educational credentials. Additionally, people leave a pretty heavy digital footprint. It is relatively easy for an agency or recruiter to look at your resume information and square it up with the information readily available on the internet. That is why it does not pay to lie or exaggerate your credentials. It is doubtful you won’t be found out before being hired. And if you do happen to get past a background check, you could end up like Janet Cooke, found out after establishing a career. And less you think that is an anomaly, Scott Thompson, CEO of Yahoo in 2012, was let go for lying about a computer science degree.

Get hired because you have the right knowledge, skills, and experience - not made-up ones.

Read more about writing resume accomplishments:

Want a Better Resume, Add Your Accomplishments

Shelley Piedmont is a job search coach. She wants to help job seekers put their best foot forward by providing the tools for a successful job search. If you need career coaching, resume preparation, interview skills assessment, or LinkedIn profile assistance, she can help. Schedule a 15-minute no-obligation consultation.