1. FANCY WORDS: Steve, an energetic businessman in his 40's, works at Sunshine Desserts, a company that makes pudding cups and frozen yogurt. Read the job description he's put on his resume, and see if you can guess what he does:
Account Facilitator, Frozen Food Division: Reporting to Frozen Foods plant manager, responsibilities include: Expediting procedures on plant floor to enhance adherence to desired goals and outcomes, proactively monitoring and overseeing all activities resulting in financial expenditure beyond the scope of the required objectives, acting as a catalyst for technological change, and liaising between all current and future suppliers and associated partners in an evolving yet mutually rewarding working relationship, while seeking a win-win outcome.
What does Steve do? The answer is... I have no idea since I made the whole thing up, including Steve. Why? To illustrate the fact that using a lot of jargon and big words can sound very impressive, yet be completely meaningless. Often, in an attempt to impress hiring managers, job seekers will use every buzzword they know, and write in complicated, convoluted sentences in an attempt to sound educated and intelligent, yet they succeed only in being completely incomprehensible. And incomprehensible resumes get thrown out.
So how can you keep your resume from leaving a hiring manager scratching his or her head and saying, "But what does he do?"
Keep it simple: The point of communication is to communicate. Write your resume in clear, understandable language. Don't use a ten dollar word when a five dollar word will work perfectly. Don't feel the need to say "utilize" instead of "use" or load up your resume with words like "proactive" and "synergy" unless they're the only words that will express your thought. The hiring manager wants to skim your resume in a few seconds to find out what you do, not spend hours reading it like it was a detective novel, trying to piece together the clues.
2. TROUBLED TIMELINE: Another area that can cause a lot of confusion and cause your resume to hit the garbage can is the timeline of your job history. Look at this example and see if you can figure out what this applicant was doing, and when he was doing it:
Jones Widget Company 2006 to present
Account Manager
Smith Sailboats 2006-2008
Sales Rep
Peterson Propellers 2006
Sales Rep
Whammo Fitness Center 2002-2006
Instructor
Vita-health Supplements 2002-2005
Sales rep
No one should have to use a computer to figure out when you worked where, and why. So help them out by at least including a few words explanation when things get complicated. For example, the above job history would benefit from looking more like this:
Jones Widget Company 2006 to present
Account Manager
Smith Sailboats (part-time) 2006-2008
Sales Rep
Peterson Propellers (student 6-week work term) 2006
Sales Rep
Whammo Fitness Center (summer job during college) 2002-2006
Instructor
Vita-health Supplements (part-time during college) 2002-2005
Sales rep
Keep your timeline clear and understandable. Most hiring managers are way too busy to bother trying to figure out what you're trying to say. At the very least, they won't be impressed with your communication skills. At worst, they'll think you're trying to put one over on them by making your job history impossible to follow. Either way, it doesn't look good for you.
3. TOO MANY TITLES: Jason Jobseeker felt that to use ordinary, unexciting job titles was boring. So instead of listing his four job titles on his resume as "Sales Manager," he tried to sound more impressive by going for some variety, and calling himself "Senior Manager, Sales Department", "Account Manager, Department 3", "Division Head", and "Team Leader, Reverse Purchasing." He didn't realize how easily this can backfire.
Your job titles should be as self-explanatory and as consistent as possible. Disguising them with fancy terms could lose you a job: in the above example, an employer rejected Jason's resume, thinking "Too bad he doesn't have more sales experience." He wouldn't have thought this if Jason's job titles had been more understandable.
Keep your job titles clear and understandable. This isn't the place to try and impress the employer - you could end up just baffling him. Two of the most important questions a resume should answer are "Who is this person?" and "What does this person do?" If the answers to these two questions aren't crystal clear, your resume has failed.
So remember - keep your resume simple. Keep it easy to understand. Impress the employer with your achievements, not with your fancy language. This is how you'll get the interview, and then your dream job.