What's the first thing you do when you receive a resume? You scan it for relevant information. When you see a bunch of unnecessary information, you may be inclined to toss that candidate in the "no go" pile. Consider this your guide on what not to put on your resume if you want to get hired (and heard!).
Personal Information
The following information should not be included on your resume:
Your name, address, phone number, and email address. These are easily found by anyone who wants to contact you. If someone wants to know how to get in touch with you after reading your resume, they can ask for it (and add it).
Your date of birth. This information is often used as an identifier for job candidates and may help employers determine whether or not employees are old enough for certain positions. This is particularly true if you're applying for a position that requires extensive driving or working with heavy equipment where physical fitness matters; those companies will want you to be old enough that they don't have to worry about whether or not you'll be able to do the job well in spite of any limitations caused by age-related health problems like arthritis. Don't worry though—if an employer thinks there's any way they could benefit from knowing this information then they probably already know it!
Subjective information, like "Excellent communication skills"
A subjective statement is one that cannot be objectively proven. For example: "I possess excellent communication skills." This statement can't be quantified or qualified. It's a matter of opinion and therefore doesn't belong on your resume.
Instead of including subjective statements, use objective statements instead. Objective statements provide clear evidence to back up the claims you make about yourself in your resume and cover letter. If you're having trouble coming up with objective statements, there are some great tools online that can help you out!
Irrelevant Experience
Don't put your hobbies on your resume. It’s not relevant, and if you are asked about them in an interview, you can talk about them then.
If you worked at a fast-food restaurant through high school or college, don't list that as work experience—it makes you look like an inexperienced slacker who doesn’t know how to find a real job.
Don’t include references to volunteer work unless it was very significant (like working as a doctor in Africa). If it was something really huge like that then consider using the description box instead of leaving it off altogether because employers will just assume there's nothing else worth mentioning anyway!
Never ever ever put anything unpaid on your resume—no matter how small or insignificant it might be! This includes things like babysitting for friends or volunteering for local charities/organizations such as Habitat for Humanity; even if they do want some kind of reference from these experiences make sure they've been paid first otherwise this could backfire on both parties involved when trying future endeavors together down the road (you know what I'm talking about).
Outdated Experience
If you're applying for a job that requires a specific skill set, make sure you have that skill. If the job is not relevant to your experience, don't include it. For example: if you're applying for an administrative assistant position in which typing skills are essential and you haven't used a typewriter since high school (or never used one at all), leave that off. You don't want to lie about what type of equipment or software you have experience with—instead take the time to learn how they work before submitting your resume or interview questions.
Lying About Your Qualifications
Don't lie about your qualifications, skills, experience, education, work history and accomplishments. If you're not an expert in a specific field and you don't have any relevant work experience, don't pretend that you are. Similarly, if the only reason for hiring you would be because of your false credentials or inflated resume—and nobody else knows this—then it's probably not worth being hired at all.
There are a lot of things to consider when writing your resume, but these five tips should help you get started in the right direction. Remember that this is just the beginning and there is always room for improvement!
If you're ready to put your resume to the test and start applying to legit work from home jobs, check out the latest work from home jobs from Legit Mom Jobs here.
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