Resume tips from HR. Don’t do these!

Having worked in HR for years, I’ve seen and weeded through hundreds of resumes to shortlist potential candidates for hiring managers to interview. Often, I’d just need mere seconds to decide to move the resume to the ‘not selected’ folder.

Here’s some dos and don’ts when applying for a position:

1. Adding a pic to your resume is not necessary and might even cause unconscious bias. If you still want to put a pic, DO NOT use a selfie. You won’t even believe the kind of pics some people use – e.g. casual clothes, wearing a cap, outdoors taking a selfie etc. Basically, the kind of pics you’d post on your socials lol.

2. It’s also surprising how many resumes contain typos. In this day and age with spell check and Grammarly, you’d think typo-free, well written sentences are a given. Do not make careless mistakes like this as most hirers would look for someone who is detail oriented. Make sure the dates on your employment history are accurate too.

3. Do keep your resume to 2-3 pages. Capture the main highlights at your previous jobs. Hirers don’t need to know the details of your day-to-day work. That may be covered during the interview.

4. In job portals like Job Street, applicants may upload their resume and/or update their employment history in their profile as well. I have come across applicants whose resume info is outdated compared to the info on their profile. It gives the impression that the applicant hasn’t put in effort into updating their resume. In this case, it’d be better to just not upload your outdated resume.

5. I would instantly put an applicant under ‘not selected’ if their indicated expected salary is out of our salary range, which is displayed on the ad. If you are actually ok with a lower salary range and are just inflating the figure, it might be better not to do so. You could be just killing your chances of getting shortlisted. Do apply for jobs that match your expectations!

6. Do not sound grumpy or disinterested when HR calls you up for an interview. This would leave a bad first impression. Also, some applicants would reply to me via email that they can’t make it on the suggested date for interview, but don’t bother asking if another date is possible. For such cases, I take that they are not interested and move on.

7. Reply HR’s emails professionally - do not reply without addressing the other person, and have a proper sign off. Recently I encountered this applicant who attached some forms and sent them back to me without a single word in his email! Just the attachments. He didn’t turn up for the interview in the end, without informing us (why am I not surprised). So I’d say, you certainly can judge a person’s attitude even through email interactions.

Hope that by sharing my perspective you gain some insights to how HR (or maybe just me lol) selects you, the job seeker! Save this post if you’ve found it helpful 🙂

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