Lies and mistakes in your professional resume as well as cover letter is the number one defiance you should never commit on your job search. If you send your resume and cover letter via email with a horrifying introduction of yourself in your cover letter, don’t ever expect to receive a call back from the hiring manager in a week or even a month. Those electronic messages and files were already thrown in the recycle bin and there is no way they will ever be revived – ever. Your journey for that job application ends there – period.
Mistakes You Just Don’t Know Are in Your Cover Letter:
Here is what hiring manager say are the biggest mistakes and problems they see if most job-seekers cover letters:
You started your cover letter with your name, again. Managers are tired of this.
Your cover letter did not match up with your resume.
Your formatting and length is way too complicated to read. Three paragraphs are good enough. You’re already wasting someone else’s precious time if you go beyond that.
Two-page cover letter? That’s over explaining. It could kill not only your chance of getting interviewed but also the normal flow of the hiring manager’s 9-5 work schedule.
Your cover letter was way too short, looked like a template, and was way too generic.
There are lots of typo errors (if not misspellings). You’re a professional so please proof-read your cover letter.
You’re already crossing the border if you’re getting too personal, arrogant and bad-mounting your ex-boss or ex-company. Please don’t do that.
Mistakes You Just Don’t Know Are in Your Resume:
If you’re targeting an upper management position, you have to be more careful with your executive resume. Remember this. Not only will one or two recruitment managers read and analyze the content of your resume, but the directors and chief executives of the company will review your resume as well. If they see the following mistakes below, your resume will not only be crumpled, it will be torn into pieces, literally.
You’re revealing confidential information. Remember that nondisclosure agreement (NDA) which you signed at your former employer? The company you’re applying for today will ask you to do the same and if they see something in your resume that is below the belt, you’re edging to the dead end.
There is irrelevant information in your resume. That’s a big NO. If you’re applying for a marketing role, don’t mention you achieved an award in biology. Be careful about the information you want to share because that could jeopardize your chance of getting called in for interview.
Lies, inconsistencies and embellishments have no space in a professional resume. You have no idea how talented hiring managers are at spotting the lies.
You’re Resume is not Optimized for the Applicant Tracking System:
You probably know what an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is and what how it functions to a hiring team or recruitment agency. Do you? Well, it’s actually a recruiting software that is capable of background screening, resume parsing, resume search and matching, and interviewing management. These are the ATS basic features that help the HR department, talent management team and recruitment officers in accurately filtering the right candidate for the job.
The reason why ATS is mentioned here is to guide applicants like you on how to comply with this modern-day system of recruiting and hiring employees. Take for example the feature “resume parsing”. This is the ability of the ATS to simultaneously and automatically convert every resume, CV or social media profile into a complete candidate profile in the employer’s system. Simply put, it can instantly match a candidate’s profile to the requirement of the job. And guess what? If the ATS detected a mismatch, that would instantly lead your candidacy into rejection.
To avoid your resume from getting rejected or deleted by the ATS system, you have to ensure that it has the following qualities: search engine optimized (SEO), properly formatted, has relevant information, has proper search phrases, and have quality contents and is ATS-optimized.
Does your professional resume and cover letter have the qualities to pass the ATS requirements? How about your cover letter, do you think hiring managers will read it from start to end and not be crumpled or deleted from the mail box? If you’re looking for solutions, resume experts and professional cover letter writers in our resume writing company are here to assist you. Just call or email our Phoenix Resume Writers, Gilbert Resume Writers, and Tempe Resume Writers if you need resume and cover letter help. We’ll help you eliminate those lies and mistakes. You’ll be called in for interviews within 30 days, or your money back. That’s our promise.