It's deceptively easy to make mistakes on your resume and exceptionally difficult to repair the damage once an employer has your resume. So prevention is critical, especially if you've never written a resume before. Here are the most common pitfalls and how you can avoid them.

Typos and Grammatical Errors

Your resume needs to be perfect from a grammatical standpoint. If it isn't, employers will read between the lines and draw not-so-flattering conclusions about you. Among them: "This person can't write," or "This person obviously doesn't care."

Lack of Specifics

Employers need to understand what you've done and accomplished. Take the following for example:

• Worked with employees in a restaurant setting.

• Recruited, hired, trained and supervised more than 20 employees in a restaurant with $2 million in annual sales.

Both of these phrases could describe the same person, but clearly the second one's details and specifics will more likely grab an employer's attention.

Attempting One Size Fits All

Whenever you try to develop a one-size-fits-all resume to send to all employers, you almost always end up with a resume employers will toss in the recycle bin. Employers want you to write a resume specifically for them. They expect you to clearly show how and why you fit the position in a specific organization.

Highlighting Duties Instead of Accomplishments

It's easy to slip into a mode where you simply start listing job duties on your resume. For example:

• Attended group meetings and recorded minutes.

• Worked with children in a daycare setting.

• Updated departmental files.

Employers, however, don't care so much about what you've done as what you've accomplished in your various activities. They're looking for statements more like these:

• Used laptop computer to record weekly meeting minutes and compiled them in a Microsoft Word-based file for future organizational reference.

• Developed three daily activities for preschool-age children and prepared them for a 10-minute holiday program performance.

• Reorganized 10 years' worth of unwieldy files, making them easily accessible to department members.

Going on Too Long or Cutting Things Too Short

Despite what you may read or hear, there are no real rules governing the length of your resume. Why? Because human beings will be reading your resume, and different human beings have different preferences and expectations where resumes are concerned.

That doesn't mean you should start sending out five-page resumes, of course. Generally speaking, you usually need to limit yourself to a maximum of two pages. But don't feel you have to use two pages if one will do. Conversely, don't cut the meat out of your resume simply to make it conform to an arbitrary one-page standard.

A Bad Objective

Employers do read your resume's objective statement, but too often they plow through vague pufferies like, "Seeking a challenging position that offers professional growth." Give employers something specific and, more importantly, something that focuses on their needs as well as your own. Example: "A challenging entry-level marketing position that allows me to contribute my skills and experience in fundraising for nonprofits."

No Action Verbs

Avoid using phrases like "responsible for." Instead, use action verbs: "Resolved user questions as part of an IT help desk serving 4,000 students and staff."

Leaving Off Important Information

You may be tempted, for example, to eliminate mention of the jobs you've taken to earn extra money for school. Typically, however, the soft skills you've gained from these experiences (e.g., work ethic, time management) are more important to employers than you might think.

Visually Too Busy

If your resume is wall-to-wall text featuring five different fonts, it will most likely give the employer a headache. So show your resume to several other people before sending it out. Do they find it visually attractive? If what you have is hard on the eyes, revise.

Incorrect Contact Information

I once worked with a student whose resume seemed incredibly strong, but he wasn't getting any bites from employers. So one day, I jokingly asked him if the phone number he'd listed on his resume was correct. It wasn't. Once he changed it, he started getting the calls he'd been expecting. Moral of the story: Double-check even the most minute, taken-for-granted details -- sooner rather than later.



TOP TEN RESUME MISTAKES THE PERFECT RESUME, BY Tom Jackson

We have surveyed scores of prime employers, career counselors and event agencies to determine what they feel are the most explain repeated mistakes in the thousands of resumes they see.

These are the top ten mistakes

1. too long (preferred length is one page)

2 Disorganized - information is scattered around the page hard to follow

3. Poorly typed and printed - hard to read - looks unprofessional

4 Overwritten - long paragraphs and sentences - takes too long to say too little

5. Too sparse - gives only bare essentials of dates and job titles

6 Not enough entered for results - doesn't show what the candidate accomplished or, the job

7. Too many irrelevancies - height, weight, sex, health, marital status are not needed on today's resume

8 misspellings ie, typographical errors, poor grammar resumes should be carefully proofread before they are printed and mailed

9. Tries too hard - fancy typesetting and binders, photographs and exotic paper stocks distract from the clarity of the presentation

10. Misdirected - too many resumes arrive on employers' desks unanswered and with little or no apparent connections to the organization - cover letters would help avoid this

Some More Resume-Writing Rules

Keep sentences and paragraphs short (no paragraph of more than ten lines).

Use indented and “bulleted” statements (with * or · before each) where appropriate, rather than complete sentences.

Use simple terms rather than complex expressions that say the same thing.

Use quantities, amounts, and dollar values where they enhance the description of what you did (“increased sales by $100,000 per year”).

Put strongest statements at the top, working downhill from that.

Have someone with good skills in English check for spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Avoid excessive use of “I”.

Do not include hobbies, vocational or social interests unless they clearly contribute to your work abilities.

Avoid purely personal evaluations. “I am an intelligent and diligent researcher” -- avoid “I have finished three major research projects” -- could be included

Don’t go overboard with esoteric jargon. Remember that unenlightened people may have to understand you too.

Don’t include pictures.

Don’t list references or relatives.

Don’t put resume in fancy binders or folders.

Don’t forget phone number(s), area code, zip code.

Don’t list sex, weight, health or other personal irrelevancies.

Don’t highlight problems (divorce, hospitalization, handicaps).

Don’t include addresses of prior employers (city and state are okay).

Don’t include salary information in your resume. Final Reminders

Remember that the reason employers get interested in you are the values you can produce for them. This value is demonstrated by what you have done as much as by what you can do. Eliminate things that don’t focus on your potential value. Above all, remember that your resume is a demonstration of your ability to handle written communication. Put as much care and attention into it as you would a one-page advertisement for a fine product.