Etchings on the Attic Wall

Highly Effective Work Habits:  10 Things to Never Put on a Resume

If you are currently looking for work, Salary.com recently published an article about what NOT to put on your resume.  These are things that an employer might quickly find on your resume and push it aside without looking at it any further.  Here are the 10 things they came up with:

1. A Crazy Objective – If you sound overconfident or a bit “out there” with your objective statement, an employer is not going to take you seriously.
2. Irrelevant Job Experience – Make sure your experience is related to the job you are looking for.
3. Achievement that aren’t Achievements – You should only list actual awards or accolades – only professional ones should be mentioned.
4. Physical Characteristics – This should be obvious.  Employers don’t care about your physique nor do they want to see pictures of you.
5. Strange Hobbies – A few are ok if they are respectable, but don’t list anything where an employer is going to question your sanity (i.e. I like feeding the ducks in my neighbor’s backyard)
6. Private Matters – You are putting together a professional resume to try and get a job.  Your personal life has nothing to do with this endeavor and should be left out because it is none of the employer’s business.
7. Bad Grammar and Obscure Words – Your employer will think of you as uneducated or, at the very least, lazy enough not to use a spell/grammar checker.
8. Unprofessional Contact Information – Use a professional email address – not one that sounds goofy or inappropriate
9. Personal Information – Leave off anything that could be used for identify theft (i.e. social security number)
10. Attention-getting Tactics – Don’t use different color fonts, crazy fonts types, huge lettering, colored paper or anything else like this that can make your resume stand out negatively.

Those are definitely good tips.  For more, please refer to their full article here:  http://salary.com/Articles/ArticleDetail.asp?part=par1734