10 Reasons Your Résumé Isn’t Getting You Interviews
Published in CareersConnect, August 2012
By Alison Green
If you're sending out lots of résumés without getting many calls for interviews, it's time to realize that your résumé isn't doing its job. If you're like most people, you're making at least a few of the following mistakes—which will put your résumé promptly in the "no" pile:
- It's generic;
- It just lists duties and responsibilities, not accomplishments;
- It's full of dense paragraphs rather than bulleted lists;
- It leads with your education, even though you've been out of school for more than a few years;
- It doesn't include the dates of employment for each job you've held;
- It wastes space on things that are irrelevant, like descriptions of your employer's business;
- It's not specific;
- It includes everything you've ever done, rather than just the highlights;
- It includes irrelevant details, such as your age or your children's names; and
- It describes you in subjective terms.