Rules You Shouldn’t Break When Writing a Résumé

The easy answer to that statement is “all of them” but that wouldn’t be correct. As we saw in a previous post, there are a few rules you want to break. The majority of them, however, should be adhered to. So read on for a quick rundown on which rules you shouldn’t break when writing a résumé.

• • • “Spelling” is an obvious first rule. No one should submit a résumé with spelling errors. Spell checkers, which are available on all computers, tablets, and even phones, are too easy for people not to use them.
• • • “Shifting of tenses” is another one that I see quite a lot. People start out fine, usually in the past tense, then they shift to present tense, then back to past. The mixing of tenses is not only distracting, it’s unforgiveable. I’ve seen some résumés where the current position is written in present tense and the other positions in past tense. If it’s done well, this can be acceptable, but I would still recommend leaving all positions in past tense.
• • • I cover the next mistake in my résumé book No Mistakes Resumes, but it’s worth it to go over it here. The biggest mistake I see on résumés is when people use “lead” instead of the past tense “led.” In other words, they say things like:
      • “Lead” development of new product…And they should have said:
  • • • “Led” development of new product…
• • • Overuse of capitalization. I covered this several times in other posts here and here.
      • This wouldn’t be viewed as such a bad thing if the overuse of capitals didn’t make it so difficult to read. And when you’re reading hundreds of résumés, it gets tiring to read the difficult ones.
• • • Misuse of compound modifiers.
      • I also covered this in more detail here, but a quick way to ensure your résumé is right is to have someone who knows look it over. Don’t trust yourself to do it.
• • • Redundancies.
      • Redundancies are not necessarily a cardinal sin. I have yet to see a résumé trashed due to the person using redundancies; however, if your résumé doesn’t have any, it will make you look better. And anything that makes you look better is good.

Rules You Shouldn’t Break When Writing a Résumé

One of those rules is the use of redundancies.

If you say the sentences above without the word/s in strikeout, it means the same. Try it, and you’ll see. “The results are in.” “It was a surprise.”nnThe words in strikeout were not needed, and they weren’t needed because they were redundant: “Final” was not needed because a result is final. And “unexpected” was not needed because a surprise is unexpected.

There are hundreds of similar examples, and the business world is full of misused words. I dedicated several chapters to redundancies in my book Misused Words for Business. The subject is repeated and added to in Visual Grammar. And remember, redundancies represent just a few of the rules you shouldn’t break when writing a résumé so keep an eye out for the others.

I only covered some of the rules you shouldn’t break in this post. In future posts, we’ll touch on all the other mistakes I see, and trust me, there are plenty of them.

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Giacomo Giammatteo writes gritty crime dramas about murder, mystery, and family, along with nonfiction books on grammar, writing, and publishing. You can see all his books here.