Thread by @BanjiAlo

I have reviewed 100+ resumes of graduates and early career professionals in 2022.

99% of these resumes need massive re-work

Here are 12 common issues I noticed

#Thread

#1. Resume Length

Most CVs with 4-5 pages have less than 3 years of work experience.

#Employers will only scan your resume for less than 10 seconds

Keep it to one page

#2. Formatting

Many of these CVs are poorly formatted.

- Margins are not concise
- Bullet points are out of order
- Inconsistent font size and style

#3. Enlisted full home address

Employers do not intend to pay you a visit.
It might be a security risk, depending on where you live.

- City, State is fine

#4. LinkedIn URL

Many CVs had no LinkedIn URL.
For those that have a URL, it had the default LinkedIn URL (usually ends with some numbers)

Customise your LinkedIn username to end with firstname-lastname

#5. Resume jargon

Many CVs have redundant information that will make the hiring manager fall asleep in five seconds.

- Remove jargons
- Keep only valuable information on your resume

Quality > Quantity

#6. Responsibilities over achievements

Most CVs had no evident achievements.
They only listed responsibilities (day-to-day tasks).

- Add some achievements on your CV
- Employers love to see results

#7. Enlisting references

Unless explicitly asked, you don't need to enlist your references on your resume.

Employers will ask you to provide your references when they are ready

#8. References available on request

Another wasted line of text.

This sentence adds no meaning.

It dilutes the strength of your resume.

Remove it

#9. Whitespace

Consider:

Banji enjoys reading about personal finance, psychology, leadership, productivity, time management, career and personal development. He possesses excellent problem-solving skills with a positive can-do mindset. Banji enjoys thinking through complex....

And this:

Banji enjoys reading about personal finance, psychology, leadership, productivity, time management, career and personal development.

He possesses excellent problem-solving skills with a positive can-do mindset. Banji enjoys thinking through complex....

Which version did you find easier to read?

The second one, I think.

Add whitespace in relevant paragraphs.

#10. Wrong resume format

International graduates using resume format from their home country.

They enlist personal information like gender and DOB.

It won't work.

- Speak with professionals in your current location and get the correct format

#11. Lengthy career summary

I came across career summaries of about 12 - 13 lines long.

That is a lot of text up there.

Reduce to 4-5 lines, or 2-3 sentences

#12. Grammar and spelling errors

Employers will not overlook spelling and grammar errors.

Ignorance is not an excuse.

There are free tools you can use

Try @Grammarly

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