Top 5 Resume Mistakes Job Seekers Make (and How to Avoid Them).

Common resume mistakes related to the structure, layout, and content of your resume are as follows:

Minor typos like double spaces or incorrect abbreviations can make you look careless and unprofessional. On the other hand, grammatical errors can alter the meaning and confuse the reader. That’s not all.

Confusing page layouts, poor margins or design elements can compress the text, hide key information, and complicate ATS parsing. The same applies to graphics or design elements. For example, custom fonts or bullet icons can break the text alignment or make the resume look saturated.

Using the same resume across applications gives recruiters no specific reason to hire you. Submitting a resume without first reading the job description and tailoring your resume reduces your odds of getting shortlisted. The odds against you—ATS screen resumes for specific keywords and rejects those that don’t feature them. On the other hand, simply pasting keywords at the bottom of your resume or using them out of context may be regarded as an attempt to game the system, affecting your chances of selection.

Recruiters are looking for ability and potential—not just your job responsibilities. Generic job responsibilities do not provide any insights into your performance. For example, ‘responsible for process improvement in my department’

Still have work history from 10 years ago on your resume? For recruiters, this can make your resume too long and even confusing. Other common resume errors include listing outdated educational qualifications that are not related to your career path. Or even personal information like marital status, date of birth, complete address or interests, and hobbies

Career gaps must be backed by the correct dates and in the correct format, or they raise a red flag for recruiters. For example, using both MM/YY and MM/YYYY for job dates could give the impression that you are inflating your work experience. It may not be considered just a formatting issue.

Even if you didn’t have a career gap, misstating the joining or leaving dates can make recruiters suspicious. These errors can get flagged during background verification and can cost you the opportunity.

While we are on the subject of common resume mistakes, let’s also consider some additional dos and don’ts for good measure:

Adding an extra month or two to an internship or exaggerating job responsibilities to fit a keyword are common resume mistakes that should be avoided. While misstating facts about an old job can be put down to poor memory, exaggerating about more recent positions can be a serious issue.

For example, you wrote code to automate a routine process that usually took 2 hours to complete. This improved team productivity by 100 hours a month. Rounding off the figure to 1500 man-hours a year is overstating the facts.

If using a resume template, you may be tempted to try out layouts with various colors, fonts, and designs. However, their data may not auto-populate correctly in job application forms. This is because certain design elements can hide content. This can also affect how ATS scans your resume, and essential sections may end up being missed.

It’s not unusual for recruiters to pull up LinkedIn for cross-checking your employment history. Any discrepancies in the sequence of jobs or timelines can cause awkward moments during interviews.