Megan Riksen:

Hello and welcome to the Work Like a Laker podcast. I'm Megan Riksen and I have Grace Joaquin here with me today. And Grace, today we are talking resume don'ts. Have you ever made a resume don't?

Grace Joaquin:

Yes, I made a huge one. It was actually when I was applying to this position, <laugh>.

Megan Riksen:

Oh no. So, well at least it worked out.

Grace Joaquin:

I know, I, well, I got lucky 'cause they knew me. So I think that, either they didn't notice it - well I know at least one person did <laugh> or they just knew me and gave me a chance. But I misspelled something on my resume. I mean, to be fair, it wasn't that I misspelled it as much as I left a letter out on accident But it was in a header. So a lot of times headers, you might have them be in all caps or something like that. And something to keep in mind is on Word it won't let you know if you have a spelling error when you have all capital letters.

Megan Riksen:

So sneaky though.

Grace Joaquin:

I know. So it didn't tell me. And funnily enough the word was education <laugh> And I had forgotten an I in it, so that was pretty embarrassing. And I think I sent had sent out maybe 10 applications with that resume. And so luckily my supervisor, Lisa Knapp, had reviewed the resume for the job application and she let me know. So I was able to change it for future ones, but I'm sure it probably did not help with some of the other applications I had turned in so <laugh>. But yeah. And, and in fact 77% of employers listed typos and improper grammar as an instant deal breaker in a study from Career Builders. So again, I feel like in my situation it was helpful because they knew me.

Megan Riksen:

Right, you get the benefit of the doubt. If you already have like laid the groundwork.

Grace Joaquin:

They know I know how to spell education. <Laugh>. But other people might not. Anyway, how about you Megan? Have you ever done a resume don't?

Megan Riksen:

I don't, I can't remember one. I mean, it likely has happened in terms of typos or grammar, but my resume kind of coming right out of undergrad was just not great 'cause it really lacked accomplishment statements. Which is definitely a resume don't, 'cause it was a probably a very boring resume, you know? The jobs I had had up to that point, you know, had been like your typical customer service roles and then to just list things like excellent customer service underneath probably wasn't doing many favors.

Grace Joaquin:

Right. <Laugh>.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah. So in that same poll from Career Builder, 34% of hiring managers said that an absence of quantifiable results was also an instant deal breaker. So let's get into some of those other ones. Shall we? You want to start us off?

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah. So aside from those spelling mistakes and lack of accomplishment statements, another don't is don't include a headshot. According to Insight Global, including a headshot can do four things that overall detract from your resume. First, it might distract the hiring manager from what's most important, like your skills and experiences. Second, you could get instantly thrown out of the pile to avoid bias or discrimination. I know that's something in our office that we take into consideration for sure. Third, it might make you seem unprofessional due to a cluttered format. And finally it could hurt your chances with an applicant tracking system or ATS. And we do have another episode about ATS that goes more in depth, but roughly three fourths of large companies use these systems, which essentially has an AI go through a resume before they get into human hands. And so sometimes those images can really throw off how that AI can read your resume and you know, kind of put it in the no pile automatically.

Megan Riksen:

Right, right.

Grace Joaquin:

I do have one quick caveat to that though. Because I always said that was like sort of a hard and fast rule, no head shots. And my, one of my best friends is in cosmetology, she was in cosmetology school at Paul Mitchell and she was doing a resume assignment for her class and she asked me for help 'cause she knows that's my job. And so I was like, yeah, of course. So we made this like really great professional resume that, you know, we used all of the resources from the Career Center and I thought it looked awesome and then she turned it in and it did not go well on the assignment. She had to redo it because first of all, they wanted a more like pretty format, like a Canva one, if anyone's familiar with those. Like colorful, creative. And then specifically they did want a headshot on hers because it was because they're in cosmetology, which I think that, to be fair, no one should have to put it on. And I'm sure she didn't have to, but they did strongly encourage that. So I am sure there are a couple other examples where maybe it is more common to have a headshot, but 99 times out of a hundred leave it off.

Megan Riksen:

Right. And I will say this is definitely a US standard. United States.

Grace Joaquin:

Good point.

Megan Riksen:

Internationally it can be much more common to include an image of yourself on your resume or CV.

Grace Joaquin:

I'm glad you mentioned that. I didn't know that. So interesting.

Megan Riksen:

Much more common. I'm sure that's not across the board but I definitely know some European countries expect it. So, you know, do your research if you're applying outside of the States.

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah. That's just one example probably too of how things might differ.

Megan Riksen:

Yes, exactly. Right. That's kind of the overall thing with resumes. Like we have some of these guidelines. But ultimately you want to know who you're sending it to and do your research to figure that out.

Grace Joaquin:

They're all subjective. Except for maybe like spelling mistakes.

Megan Riksen:

Sure, yeah, I don't think anybody's like, give me all the mistakes. So another don't is having too many fonts or colors or graphics for some of the same reasons that you wouldn't include, you know, the headshot on there. Because you don't want it to feel cluttered. And sometimes having like a flashier color is not going to really be doing you any favors unless again, you're kind of paying attention to the field you're in. If you're in more of a creative field where you design your resume using Adobe Illustrator and you're trying to show off your graphic design skills because that's what the position requires. Sure. I could see some use of color, but really we're talking black, dark blue. Those are good things to kind of stick within a super muted color palette. It does make it more readable as well. And then when it comes to font, you really probably want to stick to just one. Wouldn't you say Grace, have you ever recommended two?

Grace Joaquin:

I've seen it, I have never necessarily recommended it. But I have seen it be effective if people use two that somehow compliment each other, where the headers are maybe all one. And the body might be a different, but again, they have to be, they have to be complimentary. So if you have, you have to have an eye for that, which I don't. I'm just Times New Roman, one hundred percent of the time.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah. So you want to be careful with that. I would say come into the Career Center to get some feedback if you're going for, you know, two fonts, but really anything past that is going to be a no. So stay conservative in the fonts you choose. Even if you're going into let's say a more playful field like elementary education where the things you're going to be creating for your students are likely going to be using very fun fonts. You know, scripty and pretty - those sorts of fonts are definitely going to be a bit too whimsical for a professional position, even for a teaching role.

Grace Joaquin:

I've seen someone who was applying for an elementary position with Comic Sans font on the resume and it was super cute and it was something that like you would maybe pass out, like the look of the resume was similar to a handout you might pass out to a third grader for example. And, and I mean that in a good way, but for a resume it just didn't really work. So we had to change it up just slightly. There's probably still a few things that you can do to make it a little playful, but still within the realms of what is acceptable.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, for sure. And then graphics you know, we already said of course no headshots, but you also want to be careful about any other sort of graphics you include. A lot of the templates I've seen either on Canva or Word include kind of these bar charts. Have you seen those where it's like showing the skill level?

Grace Joaquin:

They look really cool.

Megan Riksen:

They do. Right. But when you actually like, think about it, you're like, how am I actually quantifying this skillset on a bar graph? I think it's much more effective to use accomplishment statements to provide descriptions of the skills where you use them, how you're using them. That's going to be much better for the reader of your resume to actually understand what you, what you've done. So you know, you can include maybe some strategic graphics if they make sense for the field you're going into. But again, those can also kind of mess with the ATS.

Grace Joaquin:

Being aware of how you're, we sometimes, I mean, and we probably recommended this in our ATS episode, that you might want to have two different resumes.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah, exactly.

Grace Joaquin:

One that you turn into larger companies online, whatever. And then the other one you have for in person or emailing.

Megan Riksen:

If you're handing out at a career fair for example or something like that.

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah, but either way you do want to be careful with those graphics because they can also just clutter a resume. And similar to that, another don't is paragraphs because if you are writing paragraphs on your resume, they also can clutter it up and make it so that whoever's looking at it might not want to spend the time to actually look through it because they see all of this text and it might be overwhelming. The average resume reviewer actually only spends seven to 30 seconds looking over a resume, which is not a lot of time. So because of this, it's important for your resume to be readable and easy to skim. Paragraphs of texts might deter a reviewer to engage with your resume in depth. So instead you should try using bullets to detail your experiences and qualifications. With that, keep in mind that you want to avoid using pronouns on your resume and by pronouns in this case, I'm referring to pronouns like I, me, we, my and so forth.

Megan Riksen:

All pronouns. Not the pronouns you would share to describe yourself.

Grace Joaquin:

Right. Not like she/her. It's more like the ones that you would use in a paragraph. Like I did, you know, I made, what am I trying to say? I cleaned tables at this restaurant. Right? Like you don't want to use the word I in there. So because that again just will add unnecessary text to your resume when you want to keep it as to the point as possible.

Megan Riksen:

Yep. Yep. Makes sense. All right. Another resume don't, is to not be too generic when you're writing your resume, which I think is always <laugh> the challenge with a job search when you're like in a full out job search because you're applying to many positions. But the better you can target your resume to the specific position, the better your chances are I think of moving forward. 18% of employers list a generic resume as a top deal breaker for them. So yeah, you want to think about targeting your resume maybe right at the very top with something like a professional summary because you're able to kind of pick and choose maybe a few bullet points or a quick description of the pieces of your background skillset that are definitely the most relevant to what you're applying for. You know, especially if you're applying to things that are a little bit varied, right? So if you want to go into marketing, but you're applying to a sales position and then also to a social media coordinator position, I'm probably going to highlight something different up in the top professional summary. You can also reorder your resume depending on who you're targeting that resume for. So with that same example, let's say you have some experience in sales customer service, you also have some experience doing social media for a student org You were a part of. Maybe you're going to flip the order and you know, kind of, you know, we've talked about this in other episodes, but your resume is really yours to tailor. So it doesn't just have to be this like perfectly chronological list. You could have a new section that's called social media experience and you move that up to the top, for the sales one, then you move that section up to the top so you want to, you know, you can get a little crafty with this Yeah. Right. And kind of make it work for you. And the more you do it, I do think the easier it will become. And my recommendation is always like, have that master copy of your resume somewhere where you include everything you've ever included so that hopefully you can kind of pick and choose a little bit. And it makes it easier when you're tailoring for a specific job.

Grace Joaquin:

And it totally makes sense for a lot of people to have multiple copies of their resume. So like having the master and then maybe you have one that's labeled social media that's just for you to then go off of, but even then you still want to tailor it to specific companies. Another thing too is looking at that job description and literally pulling out some of their key like buzzwords and stuff that they use and plugging it right into your resume. Which feels, I always say it feels kind of weird because as students you're taught not to plagiarize. And so like, it's kind of the opposite of how you usually write, but you can pull -

Megan Riksen:

And you still make it your own. You're not pulling the exact bullet point, but -

Grace Joaquin:

No, just the key words. I think that moves us to our last don't for today. I'm sure there's some others out there, but for today, this is our last one. And it's don't give incorrect or goofy contact information. So again, just like a lot of the others, it's pretty, it seems pretty self-explanatory, but just make sure your phone number is correct. Another thing that you might not think about is make sure that you've cleaned out your voicemail.

Megan Riksen:

That's a big one.

Grace Joaquin:

That's actually a really big one. We hear a lot of complaints from employers and I've run into this before where you're trying to call someone for either a job position, an interview, or whatever, and you can't get ahold of them. A lot of us screen our phone calls, which is fine. I honestly don't answer every single phone call I get. However, if you don't have something where they can leave a voicemail, there's absolutely no way then for them to get through to you.

Megan Riksen:

And then they, they get frustrated.

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah. And I've heard employers say that they just simply after, you know, waiting a few days, maybe making a couple calls, like calling two or three times, they pick a different candidate.

Megan Riksen:

Right, right. You can't assume that they'll just automatically email you.

Grace Joaquin:

Right. So anyway, that's a huge one I think a lot of people don't think about. And then you also want to make sure that your email is correct and it is one you check regularly. That's huge. If you're in the job search process, if you're like me, I don't, I check my work email every workday. And then my personal email, I probably check like three or four times a week. But if I was in the job search process, I would make sure to check it every day. You want to, you know, you want to be on top of it if, if someone reaches out to you, because sometimes employer timelines are a little bit tighter and they want to hear from you as soon as possible. So make sure that yeah, it's correct, you're checking it. And then with your email address, just make sure it's not a silly one, which I think now is not as big of a thing as probably it used to be. But I don't know about you Megan, my first email address was when I was 11 and it was [email protected]

Megan Riksen:

<Laugh>. Yes.

Grace Joaquin:

I still have access to it.

Megan Riksen:

Oh wow!

Grace Joaquin:

But I do not use it and I would not use that on a resume, for example. So you can use your school email address. That's totally fine as long as you're checking it. So if you're about to graduate and you're going to be like, peace out, I'm not going to ever check this email address again. Do not use that one. You do have, I think, like access to your e your school email for years after you graduate, so you can use that one. Also it's not a bad idea to just like open up a Gmail or something with just your name or your name and a couple of numbers. That always looks professional.

Megan Riksen:

Yep. But again, making sure you check it.

Grace Joaquin:

Yeah. Do you have a fun email?

Megan Riksen:

Gosh, not that I can remember.

Grace Joaquin:

Okay. You probably did.

Megan Riksen:

I definitely had a Hotmail, but I, yeah....

Grace Joaquin:

You've always been professional. Even like pre-teen Megan.

Megan Riksen:

I just, you know, 12-year-old professional Megan.

Grace Joaquin:

It was just Megan, what's you're maiden name?

Megan Riksen:

Kleinheksel.

Grace Joaquin:

Okay! So MeganKleinheksel12

Megan Riksen:

Kind of a mouthful, right? Yeah, probably, probably something like that. Yeah. Gosh, I wish I could remember. Yours is so fun.

Grace Joaquin:

Well I even remember the password. It was Speedos1

Megan Riksen:

And you still have this, so now you just gave away your password?

Grace Joaquin:

The password has changed <laugh>. So good luck to all you hackers. You're not going to get into my hotmail.

Megan Riksen:

Oh, that's so good. Okay. Can we think of any other don'ts?

Grace Joaquin:

I think we covered a good number of 'em.

Megan Riksen:

Yeah. The big ones. Right. If you have any questions, obviously come and see us in the career center. Our career lab is open Monday through Friday. Come in, get it checked over, especially as kind of that final check for the typos and mistakes and things like that. To make sure you have that another pair of eyes on it. And don't forget, we also have a couple of other episodes on resumes that we will be sure to link to in the show notes. All right. So thank you so much to everyone for listening, and we hope you tune into a future episode soon!