The 5 Biggest Resume Mistakes You’re Making

Let’s be real: writing a resume is about as fun as doing your taxes.

Most of us have never been taught how to write one well, and it can be tough to figure out how to whittle down all your experience into two pages.

That’s why 95% of the resumes I see aren’t very strong and make at least one of the following mistakes.

Remember, It’s not whether YOU think you can do the job, but if you’ve convinced the reader that you likely can.

With that in mind, let’s dive into the dos and don’ts.

Your Resume Needs to Appeal to Three Key Audiences

To ensure your resume stands out, you need to optimize it for three key audiences: the Applicant Tracking System (ATS), the recruiter, and the hiring manager or team.

1. Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

Applicant tracking systems vary in sophistication. At their basic level, they help streamline the recruiting process. Advanced systems scan resumes for keywords, skills, job titles, and relevant experiences to recommend the best-fit candidates. To optimize for the ATS:

Include relevant keywords from the job description.
Avoid complex formatting that may confuse the system, such as text boxes, icons, unique fonts, and charts.

2. Recruiters

Recruiters are looking at a lot of resumes each day, skimming to quickly assess whether they want to give it a closer look. Make it easy and obvious for the recruiter to quickly grasp that you have the right experience and skills.

Highlight the most relevant accomplishments and elements of your experience up top to quickly grab the recruiter’s attention. Don’t make them work too hard.
Use a single-column layout with a mix of formatting elements to draw the eye to the most important elements.
Use a bit of color to make it stand out.

3. Hiring Team

The hiring manager and the broader team involved in the hiring process will likely read your resume the most thoroughly to understand if you’ve got the right expertise to help be an asset on the team. It also provides them with some natural areas to probe during your interview. To engage them:

Highlight your most relevant accomplishments that relate to the job.
Quantify your impact wherever possible. Where you can’t, focus on highlighting the benefit (e.g. creating a more efficient process, improving client satisfaction, etc.).

The Top Resume Mistakes

1. Lacking a Strong Top Third

Most resumes I see have the standard opening paragraph and go right into the work experience. But this approach requires your audience to read through all your experience to interpret whether you have the relevant skills. That’s asking a lot.

Instead, it’s your job to translate what you’ve done, connect that to what they’re looking for, and convey your differentiators.

Use the top third of your resume as a highlight reel or an executive summary and include:

Job title. Start with the headline of the job you’re applying for or a high-level descriptor. For example, "Mission-Driven Sales Executive." Bonus points if you can couple that with a few words that highlight your value proposition (e.g. Top Sales Rankings | C-Level Relationships | Territory Expansion)
Personal branding statement. Focus on what makes you unique and the results you generate. You need to be able to convey your differentiators and your personal brand, otherwise you’ll get lost in a sea of sameness.
Key accomplishments: Highlight your top achievements or the most relevant areas of expertise with bullet points. This is where you’re connecting the dots to showcase what you’ve done aligns with their role.
Areas of expertise / relevant skills: Show that you’ve got the relevant skills. Use the job description as your roadmap to pull out keywords that match your experience.

Here’s how they all come together:

2. Poor Formatting

Your resume’s format is your first impression. I typically see one of two things: a boring, minimally formatted document, or an overly-designed, two-column format. Here’s what to do instead:

Stick to a single-column layout. It’s best for both ATS and recruiters.
Balance your styling. Use color, bars, headers, and bolding but don’t go overboard. Stick to standard fonts and sizes to ensure readability.
Make it easy on the eyes. If your document looks overwhelming to read, you’re immediately putting people off. Give a little breathing room.
Be wary of Canva templates. These often include elements that the ATS can’t read.
Avoid placing details in the header or footer. The ATS may overlook information there.
Don’t use photos or icons. These often don’t pass through ATS filters and increasingly companies are being mindful of potential bias from photos.

3. Mixing Duties and Accomplishments in Bullet Points

I see a lot of bullet points that are a mix of what the person did and accomplishments. Having them all listed together makes for a long list of bullet points and waters down the accomplishments.

Separate duties from accomplishments. Have a couple sentences outlining what your role entailed and then use your bullet points to highlight the notable achievements. This breaks up the formatting and also gives more breathing room for your accomplishments.

Make your accomplishments hard-hitting. Start with a challenge, describe the action you took, and end with the result. Use specific numbers, percentages, and dollar amounts to quantify your achievements. Where you can’t quantify your impact, highlight the benefit – did your actions save money, improve processes, create efficiencies, improve the client experience, etc.?

4. Failing to Edit

Your resume is not supposed to contain every single thing you’ve done. Think of it as a marketing document, designed to convince the reader that you are perfectly suited for the job. Anything that distracts from that can raise doubts in the mind of your reader, so edit, edit, edit.

Be selective. Only include experiences or bullet points that align with the role you’re applying for. Be ruthless in removing anything that distracts or isn’t relevant.
Keep it current. Remove experiences older than 10-12 years to save space and avoid dating yourself.

5. Not Tailoring Enough

Print out the job description and highlight every single keyword or phrase that matters. Then look at your resume to ensure you’ve got those same words or phrases. Is it obvious that you’ve got what they’re looking for? Where can you slightly adjust your wording to better align with the job description?

Match your wording. If your past company used the term “customer success,” but the job description says “client service,” swap out your terms to better align with the future company.
Draw parallels. Play up the similarities of your past companies or experiences. For example, my last company was in the EdTech space. If I was focused on another education company, I’d highlight that. But if I was targeting tech, I’d highlight that aspect.
Translate your titles. Some companies have unique titles that don’t always match up to industry terms. Don’t be afraid to add a more common industry title in parentheses or to slightly adjust your title to better match industry vernacular.

By avoiding these common pitfalls, you can increase your chances of catching the eye of recruiters and hiring managers. Remember, your resume is your personal marketing document—make it compelling, clear, and connect the dots for your audience.