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The 10 Worst Job Tips Ever
Liz Ryan / Business Week
Nearly every day, someone sends me a bit of astounding job-search advice from a blog or a newsletter. Some of this advice seems to come directly from the planet X-19, and some of it seems to have been made up on the spot. Here are 10 of my favorite pieces of atrocious job-search advice, for you to read and ignore at all costs:
1. Don’t Wrap It Up
The Summary or Objective at the top of your résumé is the wrap-up; It tells the reader, “This person know who s/he is, what s/he’s done, and why it matters.” Your Summary shows off your writing skills, shows that you know what’s salient in your background, and puts a point on the arrow of your résumé. Don’t skip it, no matter who tells you it’s not necessary or important.
2. Tell Us Everything
Another piece of horrendous job search advice tells job-seekers to share as much information as possible. A post-millennium résumé uses up two pages, maximum, when it’s printed. (Academic CVs are another story.) Editing is a business skill, after all—just tell us what’s most noteworthy in your long list of impressive feats.
3. Use Corporatespeak
Any résumé that trumpets “cross-functional facilitation of multi-level teams” is headed straight for the shredder. The worst job-search advice tells us to write our résumés using ponderous corporate boilerplate that sinks a smart person’s résumé like a stone. Please ignore that advice, and write your résumé the way you speak.
rikkicg84
about 1 year ago
2 comments
The reason employers prefer the shorter resume is because a resume is a "snap shot" of your skills. When and employer is seeking to fill a position they can receive countless resumes and are not interested in spending extra time flipping through one resume vs. another. They want to get the basic information in as short of time as possible. Resumes are intended to grab the employer's attention and peak their curiosity so that they call you for an interview. That initial meeting is when you can flaunt your talents which were originally left out of the resume.
aogilmor
about 1 year ago
8 comments
not bad, especially the parts about sending a snail mail resume, etc. Not sure about keeping res to 2 pages - if you've been in the market for a while you sell yourself short.