The #1 Resume Mistake I See (avoiding it is just a cut and paste away)

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Carina Clingman
September 27, 2024

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What is the #1 mistake I see on resumes? Find out below!

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One of our wonderful members landed a job, and had this to say in our Wins room:

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I wanted to send a big thank you to Carina for helping me make a stellar resume!  I finally landed a great job offer after being laid off about 6 months ago due to an acquisition. Although the market has been very tough, I routinely had interviews almost every week and many times they complemented how good the resume was. A lot of the interviews were just submitting directly to the company without any internal referrals. In fact, I didn’t have any internal referrals for the job offer that I just got.  My advise is to put down your ego and ditch your old resume.  I probably should have invested in some interview coaching, and that’s why it took so long. 

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NOTES FROM CARINA

The #1 Mistake Candidates Make In Their Resume:

There are a lot of mistakes you can make, but one shows up over and over. I have no idea who is teaching people to organize resumes this way, but they have clearly never thought critically about what matters in a resume.

I have a silly video we made outlining the ten most common biotech resume mistakes, and it’s worth a watch and a giggle. Honestly, I’m no YouTuber… but I had a company try to turn me into one for about a month (until I said NO MORE!). However, the video has good info, so it lives on until I have time to re-record it in my own style.

WHAT IS THE MISTAKE? (I can almost hear you yelling at me now) Okay, here it is:

Why in the world are people still putting their education at the top of their resume? I cannot find a single resume tutorial saying this is a good idea, and among career coaches and resume writers, this is very much NOT done.

And yet… almost half of the resumes I see have education as the very first item, under name and objective statement (another no-no). I see this both in the community (before folks take my courses) and in my capacity as a recruiter for clients.

Why is it a mistake? LOTS of reasons. I’ll probably do a podcast episode on this one thing since it’s such a problem.

First, it takes up the most valuable real estate on the page. Your degree does not qualify you for the job; your skills and experience do. You must make me believe that you are the right person for the job in 3 seconds.

Second, it introduces bias. If your degree is not the exact degree advertised in the description, your resume is going in the digital trash. If a hiring manager does not like your school, they might discount your amazing experience unconsciously. If your degree was from another country, the hiring team might not understand it fully, and your resume also ends up in the digital trash.

Finally, it perpetuates the stigma and myth that a degree defines a person. It does not. You are more than a degree. Your experience matters, so let’s put your value proposition at the top and leave the degree for way down at the bottom after you’ve had a chance to make your case.

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