What Does Your Resume Say About You?

Your resume is your primary marketing tool when it comes to selling you. Most of the time, it will be the first impression a prospective employer has of you. With that in mind, here is what your resume says about you:

Objective or Personal Statements are Obsolete

An objective or personal statement used to be essential to a resume, but since the advent of applicant tracking systems, it has become an albatross that will drag down your entire resume. An objective or personal statement says to employers that you are behind the times. It is also important to remember, even if you are trying to make a great first impression, it’s with an AI that doesn’t understand nuance and will disregard your entire resume if the language in your personal statement is too vague and non-specific to the position for which you are applying. If you feel you have to include a personal statement on your resume, keep it brief and relevant to the job,

Can You Get to the Point?

It can be overwhelming to shorten two decades of achievements down to a couple of pages, but it’s a necessity. Hiring managers expect your resume to be no longer than two pages, even if you have a long job history filled with accolades. When you submit a concise and well-written resume, it says you know how to report what’s important and cut out the fluff. It’s a trait that will go a long way to getting you an interview.

Do You Write Like an Executive?

Confusing their, there and they’re or your, and you’re all too familiar on resumes that come across a hiring manager’s desk, but your resume will show you know correct grammar.  Typos can end an interview before you ever have one. Be thorough in proofing your resume. Less is not more when submitting a resume, so be sure that you have checked it multiple times for typos, spelling and grammar errors before you submit it. You don’t want your resume to say you didn’t go past second-grade English.

Do You Pay Attention to Detail?

If you want your resume to say that you are detail-oriented and deal only with accurate information, then don’t have the wrong employment dates. Be sure you have the correct names of former managers on your references and the right phone numbers. If you have trouble remembering your exact duties at a former job, check their website for a job description on the career page. If you still can’t get an accurate description, contact a former co-worker about your duties so that you can give a complete description of your former position.

Do You Take the Job Seriously?

If your resume is a mess with little relevance to the job you are applying for, it shows that the job isn’t that important to you, regardless of if it’s true. It’s essential to have a professional, accurate, up-to-date resume that is in an acceptable format. Be sure your most recent position is included on your resume; otherwise, it looks like you’ve been out of work for an extended period.

To Sum Up

Your resume speaks volumes about you to a prospective employer. Be sure that it says something positive about you, not that you aren’t worth the trouble.

It can be tempting to lie about your experience and skill on your resume, especially if you’ve been out of work for a while. While it’s understandable, you should never lie on your resume. Here are a few reasons why.

Background Checks

If you are applying for a position, especially if it is a management or high profile position, you can trust that your prospective employer is going to check your references and former employers. By law, in most states, an employer can only confirm if someone had worked for them and when, but that doesn’t mean that other information isn’t given. If you say, you were the CFO of a company, and your prospective employer contacts them and finds out you only worked in the accounting department, you will probably not get hired. In the digital age, we live in; it is too easy to check to see if what you say is in your resume is true or not. You have a much bigger digital footprint than you realize, and it isn’t too hard to follow those footprints to the truth.

The Truth Eventually Comes Out

Even if the works of fiction on your resume make it past the background checks and you get hired, disaster awaits you. Let’s say that you say you claim you can speak Russian on your resume even though you don’t know one word. In this scenario, a Russian client comes to town to meet with your company, and your boss remembers seeing on your resume that you speak the language. Imagine the repercussions when your boss finds out you were lying on your resume about speaking Russian. A thousand similar scenarios to this one all end in the same way, with you unemployed. So even if you get away with lying on your resume initially, it will catch up with you sooner or later.

The Sword of Damocles

In the tale Sword of Damocles, the same-named character switched places with a king for a day, but not before the king arranged to have a sword suspended over his throne by a single horsehair. Damocles learned a lesson as the sword dangled over his head, threatening to drop at any moment, always living in fear of the sword. You will experience a similar sensation if you lie on your resume. You will go to your new position every day, wondering if it is the day you will be found out. Living in fear is no way to live, and even if you manage to upgrade from your previous job, the stress of being found out will negate any pleasure you might have had from the new position.

The Bottom Line

Lying on your resume will eventually lead to disaster one way or another. It is not worth the stress and damage to your reputation to lie on your resume. The old saying goes, “honesty is the best policy”,, and when it comes to resumes, it rings true.

Brian Bailie Jr Writing Service Writes Strong and Honest Resumes

If you want to strengthen your resume without lying, we can optimize your resume so that you improve your chance of being interviewed. Call us or fill out our contact form. A member of our staff will be in touch to discuss upgrading your resume. Don’t lie on your resume; let us showcase your experience!