Someone Like Me Is Throwing Away Your Resume Right Now: How to Apply for a Job

by Mike Cherepko

1. Things That Ruin Your Chances Anywhere:

-You should leave the "objective" portion off your resume. At best, it takes up space and fills up the page of your resume. Even then, it says nothing about you. The truest "objective" would say "Objective: to get a job." An ambitious one would say "Objective: to get this job." All others are slightly insincere. And when you include an objective, quite frequently you say you seek a job that is not quite the job you're applying for. So you disqualify yourself. Right at the top. Don't do that!

-Apply for a job with a stupid email address. Your name is a good email address. You can get a free email address from yahoo or gmail or hotmail or anywhere. If you use it ONLY for applying for jobs, you're set. You're already giving them all sorts of contact information. NEVER apply for a job with an email address that includes the numbers 69, 666, or words that hint at your sexual prowess. This is way more damning than having typos. It shows a severe lack of judgment.

-Don't have typos. People make typos and everyone knows people make typos. But this is also your job application, so the people reading resumes expect that you might pay extra attention to what you're writing. If there are a lot of applicants and the interviewer is looking for ways to narrow the field, typos are a sure way to weed some people out.

2. In that vein, here are things that personally annoy me and I use to weed people out. They're not insurmountable, and other people who get to make decisions about who to interview might not hold them against you. They are just indicative of one person's preferences. I'm also including general tips.

-Using "individual" as a noun. Try "person." Using "professional" as a noun. Try anything else. "Professional" is good if you want to make it clear that you're not a literal amateur.

-Saying "myself" where you mean "me."

-Bad grammar in general, but especially the kinds of mistakes that people who are trying to seem smart seem to make.

-Once you're out of college, don't mention high school. Don't provide your SAT scores unless asked to do so. If they were bad, they are no credit to you. If they were good, you seem like you are hung up on a test you took years ago. (This is less relevant if you are still in college.)

-Don't include your GPA if it's less than 3.0. Don't provide a GPA beyond one digit after the decimal. (Round your 3.46 to a 3.5.) Don't round up to a 4.0 though.

-Bulleted lists of job responsibilities are eye-catching. Begin the bullets with verbs.

-Keep your resume to one page unless you've been in the workforce for a long time. If you just have had a lot of jobs, drop the older ones. Drop interests unless you have something that makes you truly interesting. (Running a marthon doesn't. Cooking doesn't. "Writing an advice column" is a start. "Painting" is boring. "Painting with blood," is interesting but in very poor judgment to include. Or to do for that matter. But I digress.)

-It's perfectly fine to apply via email. It is probably preferred to apply via email. Put the job you are applying for in the subject line. In the first line of the cover letter, put the job title again and where you found the job posting or who referred you. You can write the cover letter in the body of the email. It's better to attach the resume as a file unless instructed otherwise. PDFs are the best. Word documents are the second best, but make sure you turned off things like boxes that show alignment and red and green squiggles to call attention to your mistakes (or what Word decides are mistakes). Don't attach anything else. You might as well paste it into the email.

-Quit stressing out about the cover letter. Think of it as a "cover note." Your experience is all contained on your resume, but you have a chance to elaborate on it a little, explain some things, and show a little bit of your personality. It's just a note! People get worked up over how to address the letter!

-That being said, "To whom it may concern," is fine if you aren't given the person's name. "Dear Sir or Madam," is good too. "Dear Sir" is very bad if the person reading the resumes is a woman. "Dear Human Resources Professional," is no good. First, you're using "professional" as a noun, which I hate. You're also only addressing someone who works in H.R. If you have a hope of getting hired, someone else is also going to be reading your cover letter. The person who posted the job and doing the interviewing might not even be in human resources.

-If you go to the trouble of finding an employer's address so you can mail a resume on fancy paper, somewhere between 30 and 300 people have already applied via email by the time your resume gets there.

-When you attach your resume as a file, name it something good. [last name] resume.doc makes sense.

-After an interview, send a thank you note. Ask for your interviewer's business card so you can. Send a thank you note to every interviewer. Interviewers have been known to not hire people who don't send thank you notes and the really tough ones don't offer their cards.

-The thank you note doesn't have to contain anything other than a thank you and a line saying you're still interested in the job. You can email it. It will get there more quickly.