Good and bad resumes

I wrote my first resume when I was looking for a job after passing out of college. It was a standard resume that any college pass out would have.

While working for my firm, I was asked to send my updated resume to two clients. Other than these two occasions, I never had the need to update my resume. Every time I wanted to quit my job and move to another company, something would hold me back. I was lazy to update my resume and prepare for an interview.

In the last few years of my career, I have been part of many recruitment drives and have looked at many resumes. Some resumes are nicely written. Unfortunately, a majority of them are bad.

Yesterday, I had to screen select a few profiles for a new position we had. Out of the six resumes, only two were well written. The rest were all badly done. That got me thinking on why I did not even read more than two pages of the other resumes.

I am not an expert in writing resumes. However, after looking at many resumes, I have a fair idea of what works and what does not.

A few observations -

a.) Some resumes run to 15 or 20 pages. People need to understand that no interviewer will have the patience to read a 15-page document. A resume should be crisp, short and not more than 4-5 pages.

b.) Fonts and font sizes are not consistent throughout the resume. Using a "Format painter" could have helped in keeping them consistent.

c.) The highlights or summary section is too long. I have seen resumes where the summary section takes one whole page. This section should just give a snapshot of one's skills and experience. That is all.

d.) Spelling errors in the document. This is bad. Why don’t people use the Spell checker if they are not confident on the spelling?

e.) Bad layout and no formatting done. If the format is bad, the person who is looking at the resume will not even try to read the content. Many people do not give much importance to the look and feel of a document. They think that the content speaks for them. They are wrong. An experienced person could be rejected if the resume looks bad.

f.) Same or similar roles and responsibilities in every project. It seemed that the person has copy, pasted the same roles and responsibilities in all the projects. There must be something different that was done in every project.

g.) Listing technologies and tools that the person has just heard of in the resume. There are times when a job seeker adds a technology or tool that they have only heard of or had used occasionally. When a person has no real experience in a particular technology then it is as good as not knowing them.
 
Not everyone would know how to write a resume that is impressive. Still if one does not make these small mistakes and is able to say what he/she has done in simple words, I think that is sufficient to make a good impression.