Top 10 things to leave off your resume

Soyou’ve finally decided to start looking for that next job. You’veused the free Classifind.com.au service and you’ve found theperfect opportunity. Great pay, great location, great organization.Now to put a resume together. Before you put fingers to keyboard,there are some things you should remember to leave off yourresume.

Thereare two important things to keep in mind about resumes: First, byproducing a resume, you are not aiming to get a job - you are aimingto get an interview. Second, your resume will be read by a busyperson: it needs to be clear, concise and clutter-free.

Withthose points in mind, the following are ten things best left off yourresume:

Your photo. Unless you are applying to be the new Elle, Kateor Gisele, a photo on a resume is unnecessary. A photo(whichmost are) is might generate a few laughs around the recruiting officebut it won’t strengthen your position as an applicant.

A ‘Personal Mission Statement’. Generic statementswhich tell the recruiter that you aim to benefit mankind whilstmaintaining a healthy and sustainable lifestyle have no place on aresume. The CV is about what you’ve done, not what you aim to do.Save your hopes and dreams for the interview.

Generic skills. Do you have ‘excellent communication skills’and the ‘ability to work as a team member’? Great. So doeseveryone else. Listing these sorts of skills does nothing to make youstand out from the job hunting crowd. Instead, demonstrate yourskills when you describe your achievements.

School jobs. Unless you are very early in your career, thefact that you successfully flipped hamburgers for three years as ateenager is unlikely to be relevant to your application for anaccounting position. Leave it out.

Details of really old jobs. Along the same lines, if you arewell into your career and applying for your tenth job in 25 years,you can safely condense your early jobs down to a single line: whoyou worked for and what your position was.

Gaps. Never leave a gap in your job history. If you travelledfor three years early in your career, then make this clear. Likewiseif you were unemployed for a period. Leaving out these sorts ofthings simply leaves the recruiter to draw their own conclusions, andthey generally won’t be positive.

Lies. Never, ever, make up qualifications, jobs or positions,nor attribute yourself with skills that you don’t have. You will befound out eventually and the consequences could be dire.

Your age. Not telling lies doesn’t mean that you have totell everything. In most cases, it is perfectly okay for you to leaveyour age and date-of-birth off your resume. Discrimination on thebasis of age is illegal but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.And in any case, if the recruiter really wants to work out your age,your education and job history will give them a fair idea.

Irrelevant qualifications. You may still be proud of yourbronze swimming certificate and responsible serving of alcoholqualification, but if they aren’t relevant to your aspirations as acomputer programmer, keep them to yourself.

Long-winded job descriptions. Don’t write long, unbrokenparagraphs describing each of your jobs in great detail. Focus onyour responsibilities and specific achievements, use bullet pointsand be succinct. You can’t impress if no one bothers to read whatyou’ve written.

Ofcourse, every rule is made to be broken and there are exceptions toall the above. If, for instance, the job advertisement you found atClassifind.com.au specifically asks for you to include a photo, theninclude a good photo. If your school job as a junior managerat McDonalds is relevant to the management job you are applying for,leave it in. The magic question should always be: “Is itrelevant?”.

David James Brewster, is a writer for Classifind.com.au. Classifind.com.au is Australia's largest search engine specialising in jobs. Hundreds of thousands of job listings from major Australian job boards are brought together in one place, reducing search time.