Resume writing is a valuable skill that is often underplayed and underestimated in schools, and when you’re younger. Nobody teaches you this essential professional skill alongside hours of trigonometry and chemistry, and that’s why it’s unsurprising how often people end up making key mistakes when creating their resumes.

So how do you avoid making these crucial mistakes and perfecting your resume for any job application, scholarship, or other purposes? Let’s begin by identifying them:

1.    Grammar and spelling mistakes

This is a pretty elementary mistake, but one that could cost you a lot of positions and progressions. Simple mistakes with spelling, grammatical errors that are easy to overlook, hyphenations, and other minor mistakes could pile on and become a bigger issue.

These mistakes are important to flag and review, and having access to tools and a fresh pair of eyes like a professional editor can help. These issues are what make or break your impression on reviewers and employers, despite how irrelevant they seem.

And no, spell-check isn’t always enough. This is primarily because automated and digitized language tools lack human skill and depth, which results in decontextualized checking and reviewing, ignoring vernacular, complex structures, and other things the algorithms don’t always pick up on.

2.    Outdated and obsolete information

Information should be updated and reviewed for applications in the present. As a college grad, you don’t need to include your high-school varsity unless it’s absolutely relevant or demonstrates a key skill you wish to showcase. Similarly, five years into your career, things you did in freshman year of college become less relevant too.

Update your skills, work history, qualifications from most recent going backward, and other key information. This also includes using an updated, active, professional email address and other contact details where you are reachable.

3.    Excessive information and details

Unless required, your resume should not contain paragraphs and essay length details about your achievements or who you are: succinct, concise, and well-written pointers and other presentation of information work just as well. Keep your writing crisp, clear, and to the point, showing highlights and relevant information for how the skills and responsibilities you possess apply to the position you’re aspiring toward.

Focus on objective statements and reorganizing your most relevant and recent work experience to prioritize information and keep it effective. Listing accomplishments isn’t ideal either. You should be talking about notable accomplishments without being too modest and leaving them out, but sharing concrete examples and evidence of their benefit to you and your future employer.

It’s a tough job figuring out what to put and what to leave out from your resume. You can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach, needing to update based on the position, and it can be difficult to manage that with ongoing responsibilities.

There’s a lot of conflicting information and advice, and it’s a lot to take on without help. This is why you can always count on Panther Academic Editing for their resume writing, editing, and consultation services. They offer various academic copy-editing services, including resume and dissertation coaching services to clients. Contact them to know more about their work!