Revitalizing Your Resume, Nix The Ribbon Dancing

The most important aspect of job seeking is revitalizing one's resume. One thing that I learned from my brief stint in recruiting is that 1) people lie on their resumes 2) most people don't know what is stupid to put on their resume 3) no one proof reads their resumes and 4) if you apply to a job posted online, more than likely your resume will first be read by a polite but judgmental computer.

Lying on your resume is just dumb. If you get so far as to get an interview and get the job, do you think that you'll last long if you don't actually know what you're doing? Unless you are Frank Abagnale from Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can and you are a brilliant con artist, the most likely answer is nope! 

Some people love to think that employers want to read all about their humanistic qualities and hobbies. The reality is that a resume is meant to be a brief list of what qualifies you for a job. The interview is the better time to explore your interests in addition to what you can bring to that company. Remember, get in the door before you express your love for Hello Kitty and Ribbon Dancing, and then suppress that deeply until you've been with the company for at least 8 years and people already know how weird you are. 

Beautiful Routine, Gentlemen. 

Typos are a death sentence to a resume. Read and re-read your resume at least 15 times before hitting submit on an application. Have your mom, grandmother, neighbor, and BFF proofread your qualifications. The more eyes the better. I have been writing words my entire life and I can spot a missing comma in a text book a mile away, but my own writing is often riddled with misplaced words and ungrammatical sentences. This post probably has 7. However, I will never ever submit a resume unless it is checked by outside eyes and re-written 75 times. 

And lastly, tailoring your resume to the job description is extremely important. Why? Well, most companies and recruiters use an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) to sort and read resumes that are submitted. These ATS's are told what keywords to look for based on the job description. As a super simple example, if you are applying to a software engineer position and no where on your resume does it say software or engineer, your resume is going to be immediately rejected. 

Now that I have told you all this, please excuse me while i now go and re-read my resume for the 50th time. Later Gators!