6 Ways Your Resume Can Make You Look Unprofessional

Amanda Clark — June 16, 2017 Follow @GrammarChicInc

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Your resume is a piece of marketing collateral—and what it’s marketing is you. A good resume will help you to look competent, dependable, hard-working, and professional—but of course, the inverse also holds true: A bad resume can compromise your appeal as a job candidate, and in some cases cause you to come across as downright unprofessional.

But you can avoid that by putting some time into honing your resume—and we’ll show you how. In this post, we’re going to list six resume goofs that can seriously damage your professional image. Needless to say, you’ll want to avoid them—and if you’re not sure how, reach out to our resume writing team for an assist!

Avoid These Resume Writing Blunders

Here are six things that cause your resume to undercut your professionalism:

1. Goofy, juvenile, or inconsistent font use. It’s fine if you like Comic Sans, but it’s not fine to use it on a resume—nor is it acceptable to toggle between different fonts throughout the resume. Stick with the agreed-upon, readable resume fonts—Calibri or Helvetica.
   
2. Using vague descriptors. Terms like hard-working, driven, and motivated are unprovable—which means they are basically meaningless. Cut them from your resume, and stick with quantifiable and specific descriptors instead.
   
3. Including a head shot on your resume. Unless you are applying to be a supermodel, there’s no need to include a picture on your resume.
   
4. Ending your resume with half a page to go. We’re all about keeping your resume concise, but you don’t want half a page of blank space at the bottom. Make sure you fill out the entire document.
   
5. Using an unprofessional email address. Your handle should be some variation on your own name—plain and simple.
   
6. Sending your resume without a cover letter. Or, getting an interview, but then failing to send a thank-you note. Your resume works best when it’s sent in tandem with these other documents!

Write a Resume That Makes You Shine

Your resume should give the impression that you are a consummate professional—and any one of these mistakes can undermine that impression. Avoid them—but also be proactive in writing a resume where your appeal as a candidate shines through.

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