resume tricks that will backfire on you

resume tricks that will backfire on you resume tricks that will backfire on you When youre putting together a resume, you might find yourself looking for ways to disguise a spotty job history, get around resume-screening software, or even avoid showing your age. And if you go looking for help, you might be encourage to employ some resume tricks to bypass these challenges. The dicke bretter bohren mssen? Hiring managers can see right through the most common resume tricks, and using them will usually backfire on you.Here are five resume tricks that you should pass up.1. Using a functional resume instead of a chronological resume to hide weaknesses in your work history.If youre trying to hide gaps between jobs, disguise several short-term stays, or downplay the fact that youve been out of the workforce for a while, you might have been advised that you should use a functional resume instead of a chronological one. Rather than a traditional resume, which would be in reverse-chronological order, functional resumes simply list skills and abilities without tying them to specific jobs and dates.The problem with this format? Employers know that theyre generally used to disguise limited or outdated work experience or job-hopping, and so theyre generally taken as a red flag that the candidate is trying to cover something up. Moreover, employers hate this format since it makes it hard to understand what the candidates career progression has been, and how recent (or old) those listed accomplishments are. If your skills are strong, a employer might contact you anyway and ask you to clarify the chronology of your work history but when they have plenty of other good candidates to choose from, it will make them more likely to simply pass you up.2. Shortening your resume by shrinking the margins and font instead of by cutting content.Sometimes a candidate who has heard that their resume shouldnt be more than one or two pages tries to hit that limit by using a tiny font and narro wing page margins to cram more text in. But its pretty obvious to people who read a lot of resumes when youve done this, and youll come across as someone who cant or wont edit and who doesnt know whats most important. Worse, youll dilute your resumes impact, because small, crowded text with no white space is hard to read and even harder to scan., which means that hiring managers eyes are likely to glaze over when they turn to your resume the exact opposite of the reaction you want.3. Leaving dates off your resume to avoid age discrimination.Older candidates are sometimes advised to leave dates of employment off their resumes altogether, so that employers dont draw conclusions about their age and assume that theyre too old, too expensive, or too set in their ways. The problem with this advice is that dates of employment are such a standard part of a resume that leaving them off looks bizarre like leaving the house without your pants. Moreover, its not just convention dates of emplo yment are relevant. Employers want to know if your experience managing that team that achieved such great results was recent if it was 20 years ago, as well as whether you did it for six months or three years.However, if youre concerned about age discrimination, one thing you can to is to remove from your resume jobs that are older than 15-20 years ago. Theyre unlikely to strengthen your candidacy at this point anyway, and your more recent accomplishments are probably more impressive.4. Littering your resume with keywords to get by resume-screening software.Many job seekers have become convinced that the only way that their resumes will actually be seen by menschengerecht eyes is to figure out some magical combination of keywords to make it past resume-screening software. In reality, many companies (especially smaller ones) dont use resume-screening software at all, and those that dont do screen using obscure keywords. Any halfway competent resume-screener is going to run expansive and varied enough searches that your resume should get seen if youre a qualified candidate. You dont need to stumble on some esoteric combination of words to get spotted.Plus, tailoring your resume to what you think a computer program wants to see is a good way to make it unappealing to human eyes and its a human who will ultimately decide whether or not to call you in for an interview.5. Using a fancy or unusual resume design to stand out and catch the hiring managers eye.When you know that youre competing against a sea of similarly qualified candidates, it can be tempting to think that you need to find creative ways to stand out, like using an unusual resume design with graphics and colors. But often a fancy design backfires, by making it harder for employers to quickly find the information theyre looking for on your resume. In fact, fancy resume designs tend to minimize the amount of information you can include, sacrificing content for flash. Thats at odds with what hiring manag ers want from your resume, which is quite simple a clean, uncluttered document thats easy to quickly scan and which puts information in the places they expect to find it. Designs that emphasize appearance over those characteristics will make your job search harder, not easier.