There is hardly any young person in India who is not aware of the job scarcity in India. Just to give you a little glimpse of job scarcity- Companies receive more than 75 resumes on average for their each open position, a survey of Careerbuilder.com finds.
And all of us know, the first step of screening applicants is to quickly go through resumes received. Hiring managers hardly spent 30 seconds to make their “fit/no fit” decision. Most of the resumes are going to be rejected. So managers have this thing in mind- what they don’t want to see in your resume more than what they want to see.
If your resume has any of the things cited below, make sure you remove it before you apply for the next job.
Photograph
Do not put your photograph in the resume, unless specifically mentioned, which is a rare occurrence. Many young lads make this mistake in order to differentiate themselves from the crowd but actually end up getting cornered. The government has strong policies against discrimination. There have been cases in the past where applicants who have not been hired have brought lawsuits for discrimination against the company. So HR managers won’t be going to take such risks. All applications with pictures are likely to be ignored.
Physical Characteristics
Anything that leads to discrimination must be removed from your resume. Your physical characteristics such as height, weight, race, religion, and sexual orientation are irrelevant to your resume.
Unrelated Work Experience
In India, we love to show when we have done or achieved something. Well, it will be good when bragging in a group of friends, but not when creating a professional resume. Do not include your irrelevant work experience.
Unrelated Hobbies
We all love putting this on our resumes but have to avoid it too. An employer is not at all interested in knowing whether you love collecting rocks or spending hours watching a cricket match on TV. Your employer wants to know how you can be helpful to achieve the company’s goal. Only mention interests that are useful and make you a more attractive candidate for the job and exclude all the rest.
Unrelated Skills
Like unrelated work experience and hobbies, unrelated soft skills are also not going to help your resume. Better remove all the irrelevant skills and stick to hard skills and competencies that are related to the job.
Personal Pronouns
Your employer knows that it is your resume. There is no point in using the pronouns “I”, “Me,” or “My.” When explaining about job responsibilities, use words managed, handled, created, and so on. Avoid using first or third person pronouns.
School Education
A resume is a short and crisp summary. There is no point in going too far back. Do not mention what you have done in class 8th or 10th. If you are a graduate, it is understood that you have passed class 12th or high school diploma.
So these are the seven things that put your resume off.
If you want to know more about how to create a professional resume, comment below to let us know.
