Résumé mistakes that cost interviews

Mistakes that stop the read in the first line

A misspelled name, a typo in the email address, a phone number with a digit missing, a link that goes nowhere, an email address from a teenage year: each of these is read as carelessness before a single achievement is seen. The fix costs nothing. Read the top block aloud, click every link from the exported PDF, send yourself a test email at the address on the page, and use an address made of your name.

Next on the list is the wrong company. A cover letter or summary that names the employer you applied to last week is one of the most common reasons an otherwise good application goes in the bin.

Layout mistakes

Two columns, tables used for alignment, contact details in the page header, icons in place of words and text set inside images all share one problem: a parser cannot read them reliably, and some human readers cannot either. Skill bars and star ratings add a second problem: they carry no information. A photo is expected in some markets and a liability in others (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia); check the country before you add one.

Fonts below 9.5 points, margins under 12 mm and six colours on one page make the document hard to read on a laptop screen, which is where it will be read.

Content mistakes

Bullets that describe duties rather than results are the most common content mistake and the most expensive one, because they make a strong career look ordinary. “Responsible for” is the signature of a duty. The second most common is the generic summary: “results-driven professional with excellent communication skills seeking a challenging role.” It describes everyone and therefore no one. Third is the absence of numbers; even an estimate with a scale beats an adjective.

Ordering and length mistakes

Education at the top of a ten-year career; the most relevant job buried on page two; a hobbies section with more lines than the current role; two pages for three years of work; a page and a quarter with the second page nearly empty. Each one makes the reader work to find the case for you. Put the strongest material in the top third, compress the old, and make the page count intentional.

Honesty mistakes

An inflated title, a stretched end date, a degree listed as complete when it is not, a language rated fluent that is not: each is checkable, and each is checked more often than people expect, by reference calls, by the interviewer who happens to speak the language, by the background check that large employers run as standard. The discovery is worse than the gap it covered. Write what is true in the form that shows it best; this whole site is about how.

Tailoring mistakes

The same résumé sent to every posting is the quiet mistake: nothing is wrong on the page, and nothing on the page answers the posting. Twenty minutes of tailoring (the summary, the order of bullets, the skills list) changes the outcome more than any design choice. The opposite mistake is stuffing: a skills list of forty terms copied from the posting, or hidden keywords in white text. Recruiters see the parsed text; both are visible and both read as gaming.

File mistakes

A file named resume_final_v3 (2).pdf; a DOCX with tracked changes and comments still inside; a scanned PDF with no selectable text; a PDF exported from a design tool with text converted to outlines; a five-megabyte file because of a full-resolution photo. Name the file with your name and the word résumé or CV, export a text PDF, check that you can select and copy the text, and keep it under two megabytes.

The check before sending

Ten minutes, every time.

• Name, email, phone and links correct; links clicked from the PDF.
• The right company and role named everywhere the document names one.
• Every bullet opens with a verb and carries a number, a scale or a before-and-after.
• The summary names your role and gives two facts no other applicant can give.
• The posting's exact terms appear in the skills list and in the bullets.
• One column, standard headings, contact details in the body.
• Text PDF, under two megabytes, named with your name; the copy-paste test passes.
• A second person has read it, or you have read it aloud.