Never Put These Things On Your Resume

It’s amazing how much resumes have evolved over the years. Things that were standard even a decade or two ago are now not appropriate for a resume. In fact, Business Insider outlined a whole list of things that should no longer be put on resumes (and in some cases never should have been there in the first place). Here’s their list:

1. An objective.
2. Irrelevant work experiences.
3. Personal stuff.
4. Your hobbies.
5. Your age.
6. Too much text.
7. Time off.
8. References.
9. Personal pronouns.
10. Present tense for a past job.
11. A less-than-professional email address.
12. Any unnecessary, obvious words, like, “Phone.”
13. Your current business-contact info.
14. Your boss’ name.
15. Company-specific jargon.
16. Social-media URLs that are not related to the targeted position.
17. Salary information.
18. Outdated fonts.
19. Fancy fonts.
20. Annoying buzzwords.
21. Reasons you left a company or position.
22. Your GPA.
23. A photo of yourself.
24. Opinions, not facts.
25. Short-term employment.

This is a pretty solid list. However, like most things in life, there are always some good “depends” or “unless” situations where some of this might be ok.

The biggest one for me on this list is “Too Much Text.” That’s so important since you likely only get a few minutes max and often less with the person filtering your resume. So, making sure it can be consumed quickly is important. However, like I said, there’s always an “unless.” In this case, too much text is bad, unless you’re applying for an academic position where the culture is to basically write a thesis for your resume.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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