5 Resume Mistakes You MUST Avoid (with real examples)! 

🕵🏻 Did you catch any mistakes in your resume after watching this video? TIMESTAMPS 00:00 5 Resume Mistakes to Avoid 00:42 Putting Education above Experience 01:52 Not Showing Impact 02:53 Failing to Include Meaningful Metrics 04:32 Not Tailoring Resume for Each Application 05:34 Overlooking the Small Things

Recruiters hate reading buzzwords in resumes but also send me nothing but buzzwords in outreach metrics 😂

I'm a job coach in my day job (I review and rewrite resumes for job seekers) and you've nailed a lot of the big things I talk about every single day. Particularly when you speak about including impact, tailoring resumes and prioritizing work experience - you are absolutely correct. However, there are a couple more things I would add: professional summaries and ATS. It is really important to begin a with a brief 1-3 sentence summary overviewing your professional history as it relates to your target job. It is, in fact, the easiest way to keyword target and tailor a job with low effort. Recruiters and hiring managers spend less than a minute on most individual resumes, so summarizing your relevant experience upfront in an elevator pitch helps you gain traction. I've compared to it the thesis statement of your professional career, that you back up with your well rounded, achievement based bullets below. Most employers today utilize some form of ATS (applicant tracking system) to process online applications. Many of these will take a resume and parse it through an internal reader, which converts it to a keyword searchable format and into a universal basic template. You might be surprised by how few hiring manager understand this is happening, but it can absolutely destroy the resume if it's not formatted correctly. Entire sections of data can be eliminated, or mashed together resulting in a resume that is unreadable. Make sure you are optimizing for ATS success with both formatting (plain, not highly formatted, no columns/pictures/tables, left justified with standard section headings) and keyword targeting. Finally, keep things brief. Remember - less than a minute of eyes on during first pass when the bulk of decisions on further review are made. Limit bullet points to 3-5 per position, limit bullet points to a single concept and no more than 2 lines per bullet. The longer it takes to read and understand, the more likely the recruiter starts skimming. When they skim, they miss important things.

Recruiters make one mistake: they hire those who make better resumes, not do their job better. We are living in the world of the spectacle. Everyone strives to appear to be someone they are not.

Hi Jeff! Just wanted to let you know that after watching countless videos you’ve made and implementing these strategies, I’ve landed an amazing job offer. I got the official offer letter today. I just wanted to say thank you and let you know that you’re truly helping people with these videos. All the best! Keep up the amazing content 😁

What I’ve found to be the case is that it really doesn’t matter whether Education or Experience is listed first. It matters that the most relevant part of your background is listed first. Almost all of my previous work has been in retail or other form of customer service, but the position I want to be in is my first job was that of a market researcher. The fact that I was a janitor, a cashier, and a call center rep will not help me get into marketing research. My education is going to be a stronger highlight because my bachelor’s degree proves that I am good at research (major was history), while my master’s (MBA in marketing management) proves that I understand how business works and how to create a market strategy. When I put my experience first, I was never noticed (at least not by reputable companies). When I put my education first, I got more attention. IMO, these hard rules about what to list first on a résumé don’t always work, especially for younger jobseekers/recent graduates trying to start their career. (Edit: added other roles to better prove my point)

I just recently came across your videos and I have to say, I don't think people truly appreciate the quality of information that you are sharing with us. In the past month, I have increased the amount of first round interviews I have received thanks to your help. Keep up the great work!

I could write "I cured cancer" on my resume, and I would still get denied

Dude, you are killing it, been showing your videos to my team. Amazing content, keep it up please!

Thank you Jeff for the useful information! I just open a LinkedIn account by following your video tutorial. Currently, I’m confused when I work on my LinkedIn and resume, you just point out the difference between two of those. Although I don’t have full-time experience, I’ll put the work experience on top based on the interview experience and your advice.

When updating your resume, consider incorporating any relevant professional development or certifications you've acquired during your teaching career. Demonstrating a commitment to continuous learning and growth can make you stand out as a candidate during a career transition.

Great Jeff! 👍 I totally agree with all of your points. Especially the 2nd and 3rd (point to metrics and impact of them), the 4th (about tailoring resume for each job you apply) and off course avoid typos and grammar mistakes that override any skills or experience. What I usually advise friends is: 1) read carefully what the company needs and spot on them in your resume, 2) include metrics and achievements that had meaningful impact on past jobs and 3) include at the bottom of resume a graphic section of 2 rows with 4 skills on each row, based on word cloud generator, so to keep the attention of recruiters.

It's essential to approach the job search with a fresh mindset and avoid falling into these traps. Thank you for the helpful advice!

Let’s face it. Being lucky counts more than 50% in your job hunting result. I received three offers in one month, but I admit, it’s mostly luck.

Love to watch your passion explaining everything in this content🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻 Thank you

You're the man, Jeff. Thank you for the detail and passion behind these videos!

The employment process is completely broken.

Also some people don’t use any colours which makes their resume plain… you should use the colour on your resume which is similar to the company scheme you are applying for … you can look at their homepage and find out which colour they use on their homepage, that way you would attract their attention immediately when they see your resume and psychological impact would be they start seeing you part of their group already from the beginning.. this is very subtle but effective trick

These types of videos just always makes so much sense. Thanks Jeff.

Jeff, your content is invaluable and your confidence is tremendously inspiring! Can’t thank you enough! 💫

Definitely quantity over quality. I remember when I really wanted a job and took several hours Customizing my application. Didn't even get a response. Send 20 generic applications and got a few interviews. You're just a number to them, don't treat them any different than they treat you.

The last time i was working on resume, it took from me a long time, but luckly after watching your i was able to catch few mistakes, thanks a lot.

This is all very true and something I can do today to make a difference. Thank you for making this video, it was at the right time and quite needed!

Thank you Jeff! Very thoughtful to provide the docs... great work, Sir !

THIS IS SO PRACTICAL! thank you so much!

All of the resume building classes, professional help, and videos I have watched and this is the first time I have ever heard some emphasize the hyphens. I am a stickler for having things having a uniform look. I have heard all of my teachings speak on formatting but those little details seem to be so easy to miss for most.

Thanks for this video Jeff. I'm pretty sure I've made at least one of these mistakes on my current resume. I really hope I get hired soon.

Thank You Jeff for taking the time out of your day to help

Hey Jeff, I wanted to say thank you so much for your content. Thanks to you, i got way less stress and extremely well prepared for my interview and i aced my dream job lately. Keep it up the great content, you are helping a lot of people. Cheers !

This is so helpful. Thank you so much for explaining how to quantify experience when you’re not on that side of the employer!

Another awesome video about careers. Thank you Jeff!

You deserve a million subscribers for your energy and humour and approachable personality

Thank you Jeff for your amazing content. Just watch your video about resumes and LinkedIn, concise and helpful information for fresh graduates like me to avoid mistakes that could be ignored. BTW thanks for providing the Chinese subtitle.😊😊😊

Watched so many videos and this was by far the most helpful when it comes to the literal content of the resume

Thank you for this! I've made improvements to my CV based on this information.

The education part is dependent on the industry you’re going to. Recruiters will not even consider you if you don’t have a state or national license for some jobs. Your job experience is irrelevant if you don’t make it clear you have these licenses or certificate because some companies require you have them and some don’t.

Hi Jeff, these tips are gold. As a career changer, I'm struggling how to put my previous work experience in a not related field in the resume. Could you cover it in your video someday? Thanks!

I could tell this is gold. I am downloading this to refine my CV

Hello Jeff Thank you for this video. I catched several mistakes on my resume after watching this video. Yours content is awesome. Wish you the best!

I like the tip about metrics. I've been helping someone in my family write a resume and we've managed to shift the writing from job description and responsibilities to "accomplished x as measured by y by doing z". However, we don't have specific numbers or percentages for many of them. Part of the problem is that he often hasn't been privy to that information (such as knowing exactly the revenue or profit for the stores he's worked for) and I believe part of the problem is, he's never seen the value in knowing that information (I've since told him he needs to start getting chummy with his bosses and talking about his performance and store performance so he can include it in resume, but let's see if he does.) So my question is: If you know you had an impact, let's say increased sales because you saw that something you did lead to more people buying a product, but you don't have specific metrics such as "20% increase in sales" or "20% increase in customer volume", how do you remedy that on your resume? Do you leave it as general as "Increased sales"? How bad does that look?

When my school's career center reviewed my resume, they said to put my education first. I loved my school so I took that as gospel. However, I got no callbacks. Then I see this video, and realized OF COURSE a school would want their name up first in an alumni's resume. It was such a weird realization.

Your tips are on point 👌 Thank you, and Keep up the great videos!

great editing, great acting and narration, and great tips! nice work, Jeff!

Great updates. Solid info. Definitely agree with all of them.

We had two candidates applied for a job. The first one whose resume showed every achievement and honor programs he had in highschool and college, but only 2 years old working experience. The second one only had two years of college but showed a lot of projects and achievement in his 10 years of working experience. Eventually we went for the second one and very happy with our decision. I am not saying college is useless, but employers shouldn't focus on what AP class someone had or famous school he/she went, unless you only look for newly graduated candidates.

Your videos are so helpful thank you Jeff!

Pretty quick and really helpful for what to look at and think about. Examples were helpful, thank you!

Very useful! Would just add to make sure you use correct spelling, grammar and spacing and check multiple times. How you write on your CV says a lot about you, and how good or bad you would be as potential employee. You don’t want potential employers to think you are unprofessional.

Hi Jeff, Thank you for your amazing content! what about academic resumes? Is it applicable to put "Experience" in the first part?

Excellent information! I’m revising my resume today ! Thanks!!!

Real usable information and a short amount of time! Thank you!

Looking for a full-time position as a fresh graduate. Used to be very depressed cuz sometimes I send out 10 resumes and may only get 1 reply. After I saw you send literally 367 cold emails I feel more confident, don't know why😂😂😂 Respect you for your effort and for making career advice content like this. Very helpful for sure!

Well, what a coincidence... I am writing right now on a new CV and cover letter... and procrastinating on RU-vid. So very welcomed video, sir! Thank'. Now I can check out the first video 😁

Love your content, definitely a big help as im transitioning to a new career

I gotta be honest, your video editing is so watchable, Thank you!

As a technical interviewer with over quarter century of experience, these are all fantastic points. Good CV is the only way they are going to decide if they want to talk to you or not. I noticed that whether you can or can't be bothered to take care of your CV is a sign of attitude. If you can't put effort to take care of your own CV you are unlikely to put effort into anything. When applying to a company, ask yourself: why would anybody at X care to talk to me? I don't want to hear about the job you were performing. "Performing" is not an accomplishment. When presented with two otherwise equal candidate CVs, one from a developer who "worked" for 5 years and another who has actually been solving problems, who do you think I will want to talk to first? The guy who's biggest accomplishment is he wasn't fired for a long time?

A word of caution on trying to over-tailor your CV/Resume, it can backfire if the job post is written by a recruiter who doesn’t 100% know what they’re talking about. Cherry pick which ones are noteworthy, and if possible, have a look at some other ads from the same firm to see which of the requirements are copy/paste. The hiring manager might be interested in things other than your customer-centric approach and team playing shenanigans, for a Data Engineer role working remotely.

What I am actually impressed is that you have had recruiters which provide you with a feedback... That's something I have never had. U.U

OMG the BEST video, I seems to made all the mistakes you mentions!!!! 😅 Now I knew and it's time to improve! BIG thanks indeed!

Hi Jeff, love your content - I’m a long time subscriber. From my experience being on interview panels in various industries, just ‘showing impact’ and ‘showing metrics’ may not be sufficient. Often we want to know a candidate’s role in the company - the actual day to day tasks - especially for technical roles or roles with the same title but varying in duties.

Hey Jeff, Another amazing video, your videos are compelling me to become a fan of yours 😊 Keep up the good work you have been doing and contribute towards betterment of the communities, god bless !! One query: I believe the resume PDF you shared in this for the 'good resume' is ATS compliant, please confirm. Thanks.

thank you so much for that information. you have no idea how much that actually i will put into practice

I really enjoy your videos, thank you soo much for your effort.

Hey jeff, love your videos! I've watched both this and your original resume video and 3 things that I'm just not quite able to figure out are: 1. as a computer engineering student, I've never had any internships and I'm actually trying to get into one, so how can I use "Measurable Metrics" when I have none? I've only done projects as part of my coursework, and a lot of the time most people got high grades so there's nothing to use there. 2. for a student, wouldn't you agree that education should be put higher than experience? since students usually don't have any real-world experience, the education metric is one a hiring manager will look for. (he'll want to know also what courses I've completed so far) 3. the word cloud generator sounds great in theory but for tech jobs I am not really getting something I can use, maybe because the roles are so very different

In regards to your first point about putting education above experience, I somewhat disagree though also agree at the same time. It really depends on the situation. If you are a (VERY) recent college graduate or about to graduate college and you don't have a lot of experience (or even relevant experience), then it makes sense to put your education above experience. There are also industries (such as education for example) where education is going to be just as important, if not more so, than your experience so it really depends. It really is a case by case thing. I always make the point to my students that it's about what you want to emphasize and what you can minimize (or even better take out if possible-- e.g., if you're applying for nursing job, it doesn't make sense to put your barista job from your senior year of high school on your resume). The rest I 100% agree with.

I've found these tips really helpful. I believe I write much better resumes now. Thank you

Great advice Jeff - thank you! Point 1, putting experience above education. Would this be applicable to a professional in their first year of full-time work (tech industry) after graduating with a Master's degree (Digital Marketing)? They have over 3 years of past working experience combining internships in the field, part-time work and a side business. Also in reference to this, what are your thoughts on leaving graduation dates off the education section? Can it look a bit inconsistent, eager to hear your thoughts! thanks again.

Jeff - any thoughts on work history details on the resume? Should you include details up to 10 years back, 15 years back - also would you list the company and job title(s) for the older work experience or leave it completely off the resume?

Thank you so much Jeff, this is such invaluable knowledge. Thanks

This was extremely helpful. Thank you!

Hey Jeff - super stuff and really helpful tips. Appreciate it! One quick question - is it fine to separate the resume into 2 columns and add a few gimmicks like social icons, headshot image, shape to separate the header etc. ?

Thank you, Jeff! Say if we happen to work as self employed as in own business for some period and they are closely related to our core professional interest, how best to put or not put them in our resume?

Great Suggestions, I have updated \ and corrected my resume as per the suggestion. Thank you..

This not only help me with resume but also with doing my annual self review. Thank u

Hi Jeff, what about some supportive role that doesn’t have much quantifiable metrics? For example, an in house legal counsel, their main role will be negotiating, vetting & drafting contracts and anticipating risk to prevent financial losses. Feel like for this type of professional role, too much emphasis on the numbers & achievements does not sound appropriate & a little bit of bragging 🤔

The "So what" method is a wow! It's very similar to the idea of asking "Why" five times to identify the root cause of a problem 🤔

Such a useful video for me ! Thanks Jeff !

Thank you for posting this. The Word Cloud is genius!! I will start using that today!

A recruiter told me to not bother applying for high-competition jobs in my area without a grad degree. So now my personal crusade is to prove him wrong 😂 I’ll need to work hard and your tips will help im sure

what sections do you always include on a resume and how do you decide to order them? example: experience goes before education, what about certifications or volunteer work? next question, what's your advice for showing a career change on the resume? in this case, better to list the jobs but only have context for the relevant new field or have a summary at the top highlighting the benefits of the transition?

Thanks for another great video and helping others! Cheers

This video is great. Thanks, Jeff!

Great video Jeff ! How one can show measurable metrics in case he/she worked on a part of a project in a large team specially not on the lead role?

This was extremely helpful thank you. Can this apply to entry- mid level applicants? I seem to struggle highlighting achievements. Most of the jobs I've held it's kind of hard to nail down on points or some kind of percentages

Pure gold. Thank you!!

Thank you so much for these videos Jeff! You are just incredible!!

Please Jeff (or anybody) cover the NDA topic in resume writing? How do you list quantifiable results when such items as; sales dollars, growth ect, or even the companies or projects worked on are under a non-disclosure? It's common in some tech sectors, government/federal contracts. Especially concerned with LinkedIn.

When was going for new roles i had a process, i would breakdown the job ad, bullet point by the key take aways and then write my experience specifically for those. And usually bolded the word in the sentence that highlights that requirement. I also did other stuff like company research. Looking at reviews of the company from former employees, etc. Because this gives you good questions for the interview. Ive always got an interview for every job i did this with. My job prep is usually 5 one note pages long.

Thank you so much for the example and the valuable tips !!

Thank you very much sir! It was really helpful!

Starting off your career as an 18 year old, what would you recommend in a resume for someone young, with little work experience trying to put their foot in the door?

For current college students seeking internships, should we still put education above work experiences? Thanks!

This is the best information I've seen & heard in YEARS! 🤯 EDIT: SUBSCRIBED!

These are amazing tips, thanks for sharing! I find it really hard to tailor for each potential employer. In europe the cover letter is very important and you can get away with a worse CV. However these tips still apply. Results and impact > Methods and responsibilities

It's challenging to tailor resumes these days as many companies want you to fill out an online application and / or upload your resume. They have that one resume you uploaded on file, and that resume is used for all job applications with the company. You can't send out different resumes to different various positions within that company. As a result you are forced to make a bloated, generic resume sent to everyone rather than several targeted resumes sent to individual hiring managers for each position.

What if you don't have relevant job experience for the job you're applying for, would it be okay to put education at the top with an expected graduating date for a relevant degree?

This cements my deep, deep reverence for connections...especially nepotism.

Have fun in Pennsylvania Jeff, great video as always!

I can give anyone a few good tips. If you've got rare achievements mentioned on your CV (say passing a CFA level 1 and 2 exams) it does not really matter how you structure your CV. You can write it on toilet paper, its not the organisation of things on it what matters, hidden gems is what most employees are after.

Just in time when i am looking for a job