Three Reasons Why Your Resume Ends Up in the Discard Pile

Thank your stars you are not applying for a job with David Silverman. How you create a hyphen on your resume could very likely decide whether you go into David's "considers further merit" pile or the "thanks but no thanks" collection.

"Personally, I look at the width of the dashes," writes Silverman on his Harvard Business Publishing post How to Write a Résumé That Doesn't Annoy People, noting that Microsoft Word adjusts hyphen widths based on spacing in the document. "Many people don't know this, and they don't notice that their dashes are all different lengths. Does this mean they are more or less qualified to be a project planner? I don't know, but it's easy for me to say, 'If you don't know that your own résumé is inconsistent, how can you be expected to supervise a multi-million dollar project?'"

Fact is every hiring officer probably has his or her own unique set of prejudices that set off little alarm bells as they read through job applications. But David's post is also a very strong reminder of resume blunders that will probably matter to any number of potential employers.

Here are three he includes:

"Get the formatting right. Line up bullet points, dates, headings. Wacky spacing will get you questioned about skills that have nothing to do with what you can do on the job. And please learn to put dates flush against the right margin. The right-aligned tab stop remains a mystery as deep as an ocean for many resume writers.

"Choose verbs that mean something. "Assisted," "Worked on," "Contributed to" and so on don't convey much to a prospective employer. Instead, say what you did: "Wrote," "Designed," or "Managed." The more specific, the better.

"Rewrite your résumé for each job application. If you really want a job, your prospective employer isn't going to be impressed by your inability to adjust one 3-page document to meet their needs. Highlight the top 3 to 7 things you've done that match up with the requirements of the job."

David is right. This kind of attention to detail and consistency will help your resume jump out from the more typical collection of sloppy typos, vague verbs and generic boilerplate language. Make sure to read the full post for other useful tips.

So, what's the worst resume ever to cross your desk? Any peculiarities you bring to your own judging of resumes?