How to Avoid Resume Pitfalls
ZoomInterviews Guide To Overcoming Resume Challenges
Your work experience is simply that - yours - for better or worse, and while there may be aspects of your work history that you wish you could change, the reality is that your professional past is a story that has already been written. The good news is that there are different ways in which this story can be told. Understanding how to position your work experience, particularly in the case of your resume, can increase the likelihood you'll be called for an interview.
Most people see their less than perfect work experience as a challenge when putting together their resume. The purpose of this guide is to introduce you to common resume challenges, as well as effective strategies for handling these challenges and turning your story (that is, the resume) into one worth telling.
Returning to school - Additional schooling, in general, is an acceptable reason for a gap in employment. This is particularly true when you are pursuing a graduate degree or certification that relates to the type of jobs that you are pursuing. On your resume, be sure to include your schooling in the Education section and clearly state the dates of your program.
Relocating - Employers understand that a geographic move can prolong a job search. It is usually acceptable to take up to 6 months to find a job in a slow job market and up to 3 months in a hot job market. Having this gap reflected on your resume shouldn't be too much of a concern. Of course, it is preferable to minimize the gap in employment based on a transition from one city or state to another. Ideally you can activate your job search for a new geography before you move and while you're still gainfully employed. Be sure to use a local address in your destination city on your resume to suggest to recruiters and hiring managers that you are already situated in the area and available to interview. This is the case even though your most recent work experience might be in the city you're moving from.
Lay off / Firing - If you are laid off or fired, you may wonder how you should address this on your resume, let alone explain your situation in the interview. Actually, we recommend not indicating any sort of firing or lay off on your resume. Simply indicate your beginning and end dates for each position. Align your resume with your story, which includes the reasons for any gaps. Be ready to address questions about your departure from your most recent employer during the interview.
Inability to find a job - In a very tough job market, it is common for job seekers to be unemployed for extended periods of time. Unfortunately, the longer someone is unemployed, the less attractive they become as a candidate. The way to address this on your resume is also the way to increase your chances of landing an interview - by seeking out contract, consulting or pro bono projects, training or classes to keep your skills relevant. Contract or consulting work will give your resume continuity while adding to your collective experience. Additional education and coursework is a second-best alternative to bolster your resume.
Took time off -There may be times in your life when you need to take significant time off of work (i.e. at least several months). Some people take time off work to care for aging parents, step away from their career to gain perspective, or perhaps because they're feeling burnt out. Whatever the reason you have for taking time off, the gap in your resume should be visually minimized by increasing the number of bullets for the positions immediately before and after the time you were unemployed. The rational here is to draw attention to your substantive work experience and your accomplishments, while removing attention from the time you weren't employed.
While limited work experience is commonly associated with new graduates just starting their careers, it can also be an obstacle for more seasoned professionals who are looking to make a career change. Below we'll address both types of limited work experience and the strategies that can be used to address these challenges on the resume.
Include more bullets - Craft up to 5-6 strong bullets for each of your positions, if possible. This helps to fill out your resume and makes your work experience seem more substantive. You also have more examples to draw upon when asked to give examples of certain aspects of your experience.
Highlight relevant academic experience - Your undergrad or graduate programs were likely rich in learning experiences, some of which can apply to your target function. Highlight any relevant coursework and/or academic projects you've completed. Activities you might consider including on your resume could be joining relevant student groups related to the function or industry, participating in strategy case competitions (for those looking at consulting or internal strategy), planning an industry conference, or doing research in a related discipline with a professor.
Leverage the "Additional" section - If you lack direct experience in your target function, you can use the "Additional" section of your resume to highlight achievements that convey you possess relevant qualities and strengths. Activities such as volunteering, training for a marathon, learning/speaking a foreign language or reading modern literature all show different aspects of your personality and character that may be desirable for the position you're interviewing for.
As for formatting, use 12-point font on all content to take up more space on your resume and avoid having your resume look too sparse. Be sure not to use a font larger than 12-point, though, as this begins to look amateurish and unprofessional.
The first is to include a well-rounded skill set for a target function. For example, for a general management role, a corporate recruiter may be looking for someone who possesses strategic thinking, leadership capability, team building skills and the ability to grow a business and achieve bottom line results. These qualities should be represented in the examples that a candidate includes in his or her resume.
The second strategy is to create a separate work experience section that highlights the function-specific experience you possess for the target function. For example, if you are a focusing on strategy as your target function and previously had experience in finance, you would include any relevant strategy experience in a separate work experience section titled "Strategy Experience."
If you've job hopped during your career, you need to paint a cohesive picture of your work history on your resume, with job transitions that build a story that seems logical and makes good sense. This goes beyond what is on your resume and speaks to what you'll actually be telling interviewers if asked about your frequent moves. Of course, you need to be ready to explain your moves and make sure your resume aligns with your story. The essential strategies for addressing job hopping on the resume include:
Give the impression of impact - You can portray a more significant tenure at each job you've held by including to 5 or 6 significant accomplishment bullets for each of your positions. When the reader sees a substantial experience section for each job it gives him/her a sense that you have accomplished a lot within the role and it also subtly suggests that you've been in the position for longer than you really have. This is a visual trick that can be quite effective, while at the same time still accurately reflecting your true work experience.
Removing months from employment dates - Consider removing the months of employment for each position from your resume. This can "mask" the job hopping that comes across in your work experience. To illustrate, by putting 2000-2001, a person could have spent as little as two days in a position (e.g. December 31, 2010 to January 1, 2011) or two years (e.g. January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2001). However, if asked directly what your dates of employment are for a given job, you should always tell the truth. Do expect to be asked about this by astute recruiters and hiring managers. This could be a red flag for some people, so be aware of the risks involved with using this strategy and proceed with caution.
Including signals on the resume - "Signaling," at its essence, is the inclusion of activities, education and interests on the resume that give a clear "signal" to the reader that your career is focused in a specific direction. Including any function or industry related activities that you participated in during your college education, work experience or continuing education that is function related, sends the message that you have competencies, knowledge and interest in a target function (i.e. your new career focus). You can also express these interests in the "Additional" section of your resume. For example, showing you have volunteered to do the accounting for your local church or synagogue if you are looking to transition into a corporate finance or accounting role, or joining a professional or industry organization.
We mention continuing education as part of a signaling strategy on the resume, and it's also worth expanding on how to further take advantage of this content. Certifications, individual training programs and professional designations provide evidence of competence and commitment to a certain career. These should be included in the "Education" or "Additional" section of your resume to help build a strong case for your candidacy.
Work experience - Ideally you have actively sought out assignments and projects that will give you transferrable skills and experiences that are applicable for your new target career. In this instance, it's important that you have well-positioned bullets that highlight a well-rounded skill set for your target function. In addition, highlight any industry experience (or at least exposure), knowledge of which would be valued in your new target function (see the Example - Experienced professional with limited work experience in new function under Resume Challenge #2: Limited Work Experience).
Industry and function-specific words - An effective strategy to help the reader perceive you as being more relevant and knowledgeable to the role you're applying for is the use of appropriate function-specific and industry-specific words. This not only shows you can make the link between your prior experience and the target function, but also, by using these words to describe your experience, your resume is more likely to resonate with the recruiter or hiring manager. As a simple example, consider how companies in different industries refer to their target market:
When you have had a series of "random" jobs, you need to be able to draw this collective experience together in a cohesive message about your candidacy, while highlighting the transferrable skills and experiences you have. The following strategies can be implemented to shore up your resume:
Highlight a well-rounded skill set - Your most recent position should reflect a well-rounded skill set aligned with the job you're applying for. This means that you'll need to identify the specific requirements for your target job function and make sure that each of your bullets captures one or two of the these skills and experiences. Read together, your bullets should then convey the message that you possess all, or most of, the fundamental requirements for the job (see the Example - Experienced professional with limited work experience in new function under Resume Challenge #2: Limited Work Experience).
"Smoothing" the work experience - Look for common themes in the jobs you've had and look to "smooth" the work experience section of your resume so that it does not come across as all over the place. A lot of smoothing has to do with formatting. A professionally formatted resume will allow the messages you want to convey to come across a lot clearer, as it will be presented in a clean and consistent format that's easy to read.
Find opportunities to add "signals" to your resume - see Resume Challenge #4: Changing Careers above.
Just as important as the strategies above, you need to recognize the areas of your resume that could potentially raise concerns with an employer, and be ready with a strong story about your work history that, as best as possible, explains your career transitions from one position to another.
Pigeon holing is difficult to overcome because it requires a mental shift in looking at your own experience, even before being able to translate this shift into tangible selling points on the resume. Below are several essential strategies to help you break out of your current role on the resume and effectively market yourself for a new job function or industry.
Aggressive repositioning - It is up to you to really be able to draw out the relevant skills and experience from your background and reflect them on your resume in a way that quickly resonates with the reader. This requires making a radical marketing shift in your resume content to highlight new skills sets and position past experiences in a different light. Many of the same strategies mentioned above will be implemented here, including tailoring bullets to display a well-rounded skill set targeted towards your desired function, incorporating signals into resume content, and the effective use of buzzwords.
Selective de-emphasis - While you will look to highlight certain relevant experiences you have, other aspects of your experience will be de-emphasized. Tone down the function or industry specific jargon that doesn't pertain to your target job. This requires the mental shift mentioned above, approaching your resume from the vantage point of the hiring manager. What skills and experiences is s/he looking for on the resume? What words and phrases will resonate with him or her, and conversely what words or phrases will not?
Most people see their less than perfect work experience as a challenge when putting together their resume. The purpose of this guide is to introduce you to common resume challenges, as well as effective strategies for handling these challenges and turning your story (that is, the resume) into one worth telling.
Resume Challenge #1
Gaps in Employment (lay off, firing, inability to find a job, etc.)
There are times in your career where, through conscious choice or through no fault of your own, you may find yourself unemployed for a period of time. There are many different reasons for gaps in employment. Some are planned, while others are unplanned. These reasons can include returning to school, relocation, a lay off, getting fired, the inability to find a job, and taking time off. We'll cover each of these reasons for employment gaps and the specific ways to best position these gaps on the resume.Returning to school - Additional schooling, in general, is an acceptable reason for a gap in employment. This is particularly true when you are pursuing a graduate degree or certification that relates to the type of jobs that you are pursuing. On your resume, be sure to include your schooling in the Education section and clearly state the dates of your program.
Relocating - Employers understand that a geographic move can prolong a job search. It is usually acceptable to take up to 6 months to find a job in a slow job market and up to 3 months in a hot job market. Having this gap reflected on your resume shouldn't be too much of a concern. Of course, it is preferable to minimize the gap in employment based on a transition from one city or state to another. Ideally you can activate your job search for a new geography before you move and while you're still gainfully employed. Be sure to use a local address in your destination city on your resume to suggest to recruiters and hiring managers that you are already situated in the area and available to interview. This is the case even though your most recent work experience might be in the city you're moving from.
Lay off / Firing - If you are laid off or fired, you may wonder how you should address this on your resume, let alone explain your situation in the interview. Actually, we recommend not indicating any sort of firing or lay off on your resume. Simply indicate your beginning and end dates for each position. Align your resume with your story, which includes the reasons for any gaps. Be ready to address questions about your departure from your most recent employer during the interview.
Inability to find a job - In a very tough job market, it is common for job seekers to be unemployed for extended periods of time. Unfortunately, the longer someone is unemployed, the less attractive they become as a candidate. The way to address this on your resume is also the way to increase your chances of landing an interview - by seeking out contract, consulting or pro bono projects, training or classes to keep your skills relevant. Contract or consulting work will give your resume continuity while adding to your collective experience. Additional education and coursework is a second-best alternative to bolster your resume.
Took time off -There may be times in your life when you need to take significant time off of work (i.e. at least several months). Some people take time off work to care for aging parents, step away from their career to gain perspective, or perhaps because they're feeling burnt out. Whatever the reason you have for taking time off, the gap in your resume should be visually minimized by increasing the number of bullets for the positions immediately before and after the time you were unemployed. The rational here is to draw attention to your substantive work experience and your accomplishments, while removing attention from the time you weren't employed.
Resume Challenge #2
Limited Work Experience
The challenge of limited work experience is really a chicken and egg dilemma. You need the right experience to get hired for a certain function, but how do you get that experience if no one will hire you until you have it? This challenge translates to the resume, as well, where drawing out the relevant experience you have for your target job is of critical importance.While limited work experience is commonly associated with new graduates just starting their careers, it can also be an obstacle for more seasoned professionals who are looking to make a career change. Below we'll address both types of limited work experience and the strategies that can be used to address these challenges on the resume.
New Graduates
For new graduates, there are several strategies for making one's work experience seem more substantive:Include more bullets - Craft up to 5-6 strong bullets for each of your positions, if possible. This helps to fill out your resume and makes your work experience seem more substantive. You also have more examples to draw upon when asked to give examples of certain aspects of your experience.
Highlight relevant academic experience - Your undergrad or graduate programs were likely rich in learning experiences, some of which can apply to your target function. Highlight any relevant coursework and/or academic projects you've completed. Activities you might consider including on your resume could be joining relevant student groups related to the function or industry, participating in strategy case competitions (for those looking at consulting or internal strategy), planning an industry conference, or doing research in a related discipline with a professor.
Leverage the "Additional" section - If you lack direct experience in your target function, you can use the "Additional" section of your resume to highlight achievements that convey you possess relevant qualities and strengths. Activities such as volunteering, training for a marathon, learning/speaking a foreign language or reading modern literature all show different aspects of your personality and character that may be desirable for the position you're interviewing for.
As for formatting, use 12-point font on all content to take up more space on your resume and avoid having your resume look too sparse. Be sure not to use a font larger than 12-point, though, as this begins to look amateurish and unprofessional.
Experienced Professionals
Unlike new graduates, who generally have to overcome a lack of overall work experience and function-specific experience, more seasoned professionals will typically feel the lack of experience when they are trying to make a career change from a function in which they have extensive experience to one in which they have limited experience. In this case, it can be beneficial to implement a couple of strategies to best position oneself on the resume.The first is to include a well-rounded skill set for a target function. For example, for a general management role, a corporate recruiter may be looking for someone who possesses strategic thinking, leadership capability, team building skills and the ability to grow a business and achieve bottom line results. These qualities should be represented in the examples that a candidate includes in his or her resume.
Resume Challenge #3
Job Hopping
Job hopping (i.e. generally understood as spending less than 2 years in a job) can come back to bite you later in your career as you try to vie for increasingly more senior roles, and the greater responsibility and larger salaries that come with them. In a hot job market, job hopping is often overlooked by companies as they race to snatch up talent before their competitors. However, with the current economy and job market making a slow yet steady recovery, employers are becoming increasingly selective in who they hire. This means that job hoppers will be viewed with great suspicion, with companies wondering if they'll move on after only a few years.If you've job hopped during your career, you need to paint a cohesive picture of your work history on your resume, with job transitions that build a story that seems logical and makes good sense. This goes beyond what is on your resume and speaks to what you'll actually be telling interviewers if asked about your frequent moves. Of course, you need to be ready to explain your moves and make sure your resume aligns with your story. The essential strategies for addressing job hopping on the resume include:
Give the impression of impact - You can portray a more significant tenure at each job you've held by including to 5 or 6 significant accomplishment bullets for each of your positions. When the reader sees a substantial experience section for each job it gives him/her a sense that you have accomplished a lot within the role and it also subtly suggests that you've been in the position for longer than you really have. This is a visual trick that can be quite effective, while at the same time still accurately reflecting your true work experience.
Removing months from employment dates - Consider removing the months of employment for each position from your resume. This can "mask" the job hopping that comes across in your work experience. To illustrate, by putting 2000-2001, a person could have spent as little as two days in a position (e.g. December 31, 2010 to January 1, 2011) or two years (e.g. January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2001). However, if asked directly what your dates of employment are for a given job, you should always tell the truth. Do expect to be asked about this by astute recruiters and hiring managers. This could be a red flag for some people, so be aware of the risks involved with using this strategy and proceed with caution.
Resume Challenge #4
Changing Careers
For any career changes, particularly significant career changes, having a polished, tailored resume that positions you well is absolutely critical to increase your chances of being called for an interview. If you are making a career change, this by definition means that your prior work experience will, in many respects, be different than your future work. However, there are ways to bridge the gap on the resume so that the recruiter or hiring manager is better able to make the connection between the jobs you've done and the job you want. Essential strategies to consider:Including signals on the resume - "Signaling," at its essence, is the inclusion of activities, education and interests on the resume that give a clear "signal" to the reader that your career is focused in a specific direction. Including any function or industry related activities that you participated in during your college education, work experience or continuing education that is function related, sends the message that you have competencies, knowledge and interest in a target function (i.e. your new career focus). You can also express these interests in the "Additional" section of your resume. For example, showing you have volunteered to do the accounting for your local church or synagogue if you are looking to transition into a corporate finance or accounting role, or joining a professional or industry organization.
We mention continuing education as part of a signaling strategy on the resume, and it's also worth expanding on how to further take advantage of this content. Certifications, individual training programs and professional designations provide evidence of competence and commitment to a certain career. These should be included in the "Education" or "Additional" section of your resume to help build a strong case for your candidacy.
Industry and function-specific words - An effective strategy to help the reader perceive you as being more relevant and knowledgeable to the role you're applying for is the use of appropriate function-specific and industry-specific words. This not only shows you can make the link between your prior experience and the target function, but also, by using these words to describe your experience, your resume is more likely to resonate with the recruiter or hiring manager. As a simple example, consider how companies in different industries refer to their target market:
- Consumer (e.g. in consumer package goods companies)
- Client (e.g. in consulting, accounting or law firms)
- Guest (e.g. in hospitality or entertainment companies)
- Customer (e.g. supermarket or retail clothing store chains)
Resume Challenge #5
Positioning Random Work Experience
After several years of being in the workforce, you may find yourself in the position where you've taken various jobs that weren't necessarily career positions, but simply jobs you felt you needed to take in order to pay the bills or because you thought you'd "try out" these new roles to see if they were a fit. While this career experimentation can be beneficial, if it is done too often, the consequence is a resume that is disjointed, or one that conveys a lack of depth and expertise, and even worse, a lack of longevity in any one position.When you have had a series of "random" jobs, you need to be able to draw this collective experience together in a cohesive message about your candidacy, while highlighting the transferrable skills and experiences you have. The following strategies can be implemented to shore up your resume:
Highlight a well-rounded skill set - Your most recent position should reflect a well-rounded skill set aligned with the job you're applying for. This means that you'll need to identify the specific requirements for your target job function and make sure that each of your bullets captures one or two of the these skills and experiences. Read together, your bullets should then convey the message that you possess all, or most of, the fundamental requirements for the job (see the Example - Experienced professional with limited work experience in new function under Resume Challenge #2: Limited Work Experience).
"Smoothing" the work experience - Look for common themes in the jobs you've had and look to "smooth" the work experience section of your resume so that it does not come across as all over the place. A lot of smoothing has to do with formatting. A professionally formatted resume will allow the messages you want to convey to come across a lot clearer, as it will be presented in a clean and consistent format that's easy to read.
Find opportunities to add "signals" to your resume - see Resume Challenge #4: Changing Careers above.
Just as important as the strategies above, you need to recognize the areas of your resume that could potentially raise concerns with an employer, and be ready with a strong story about your work history that, as best as possible, explains your career transitions from one position to another.
Resume Challenge #6
Pigeon Holing
Pigeon holing occurs when a professional has almost all of his or her work experience in a given function or industry and is perceived by others to be limited in their ability to take on roles outside of their current area of focus. This commonly happens when one's skills are specialized and apply to a very specific area of business. Take for example the IT professional who has spent 7-10 years working primarily within technology infrastructure for his company, and now wants to move into a more strategy focused role. He could face a challenge with others actually being able to envision him in a role that doesn't align in an obvious way with his professional experience and areas of competency to-date.Pigeon holing is difficult to overcome because it requires a mental shift in looking at your own experience, even before being able to translate this shift into tangible selling points on the resume. Below are several essential strategies to help you break out of your current role on the resume and effectively market yourself for a new job function or industry.
Aggressive repositioning - It is up to you to really be able to draw out the relevant skills and experience from your background and reflect them on your resume in a way that quickly resonates with the reader. This requires making a radical marketing shift in your resume content to highlight new skills sets and position past experiences in a different light. Many of the same strategies mentioned above will be implemented here, including tailoring bullets to display a well-rounded skill set targeted towards your desired function, incorporating signals into resume content, and the effective use of buzzwords.
Selective de-emphasis - While you will look to highlight certain relevant experiences you have, other aspects of your experience will be de-emphasized. Tone down the function or industry specific jargon that doesn't pertain to your target job. This requires the mental shift mentioned above, approaching your resume from the vantage point of the hiring manager. What skills and experiences is s/he looking for on the resume? What words and phrases will resonate with him or her, and conversely what words or phrases will not?
