5 Résumé Tricks That Can Backfire

5 Rsum Tricks That Can Backfire5 Rsum Tricks That Can BackfireWhen youreputting together a rsum, you might find yourself looking for ways todisguise a spotty job history, get around rsum-screening software or evenavoid showing your age. And if you go looking for help, you might be encouraged to employ some rsum tricks to bypass these challenges. The problem? Hiring managerscan see right through the most common rsum tricks, and using them willusually backfire on you.Here are five rsum tricks that you should pass up.1. Using a functional rsum instead of a chronological rsum to hideweaknesses in your work history. If youre trying to hide gaps between jobs, disguise severalshort-term stays or downplay the fact that youve been out of the workforce fora while, you might have been advised that you should use a functional rsum instead of a chronological one. Rather than a traditional rsum, which would be in reverse-chronological order, functional rsums simply list skills andabilities without tying them to specific jobs and dates.The problem with this format? Employers know that theyregenerally used to disguise limited or outdated work experience or job hopping,and so theyre generally taken as a red flag that the candidate is trying tocover something up. Moreover, employers hate this format since it makes it hardto understand what the candidates career progression has been, and how recent(or old) those listed accomplishments are. If your skills are strong, anemployer might contact you anyway and ask you to clarify the chronology of yourwork history but when they have plenty of other good candidates to choosefrom, it will make them more likely to simply pass you up.2. Shortening your rsum by shrinking the margins and font instead of cutting content. Sometimes a candidate who hasheard that his or her rsum shouldnt be more than one or two pages tries to hit that limitby using a tiny font and narrowing page margins to cram more text in. But itspretty obvious to people who read a lot of rsums when youve done this, andyoull come across as someone who cant or wont edit and who doesnt knowwhats most important. Worse, youll dilute your rsums impact,because small, crowded text with no white space is hard to read and even harderto scan, which means hiring managers eyes are likely to glaze over when theyturn to your rsum the exact opposite of the reaction you want.3. Leaving dates off your rsum to avoid age discrimination. Older candidates are sometimes advised toleave dates of employment off their rsums altogether, so that employersdont draw conclusions about their age and assume that theyre too old, tooexpensive or too set in their ways. The problem with this advice is that datesof employment are such a standard part of a rsum that leaving them off looksbizarre like leaving the house without your pants. Moreover, its not justconvention dates of employment are relevant. Employers want to know if your experiencemanaging the team that achieved such great re sults was recent or if it was 20years ago, as well as whether you did it for six months or three years.However, ifyoure concerned about age discrimination, one thing you can do is remove fromyour rsum jobs that are older than 15 to 20 years. Theyre unlikely tostrengthen your candidacy at this point anyway, and your more recentaccomplishments are probably more impressive.4. Littering your rsum with keywords to get by rsum-screeningsoftware. Many jobseekers have become convinced that the only way theirrsums will be seen byhuman eyes is to figureout some magical combination of keywords to make itpast rsum-screening software. In reality, many companies (especiallysmaller ones) dont use rsum-screening software, and those that do dont screen usingobscure keywords. Any halfway competent rsum screener is going to runexpansive and varied enough searches that your rsum should get seenif youre a qualified candidate. You dont need to stumble on some esotericcombination of words to get spotted.P lus,tailoring your rsum to what you think a computer program wants to see is a good wayto make it unappealing to human eyes and its a human who will ultimatelydecide whether to call you in for an interview.5. Using a fancy or unusual rsum design to stand out and catch the hiring managers eye. When you know youre competingagainst a sea of similarly qualified candidates, it can be tempting to think youneed to find creative ways to stand out, like using an unusual rsum design with graphics and colors. But often a fancy designbackfires by making it harder for employers to quickly find the informationtheyre looking for on your rsum. In fact, fancy rsum designs tend to minimize the amount of information you caninclude, sacrificing content for flash. Thats at odds with what hiringmanagers want from your rsum, which is quite simple a clean, uncluttered document thats easyto quickly scan and which puts information in the places they expect to findit. Designs that emphasize appearance over t hose characteristics will make yourjob search harder, not easier.