The resume mistakes that actually cost interviews

Ordered by how much damage they do, rather than by how often they get repeated in listicles. A few widely feared mistakes are not mistakes at all.

1. Describing duties instead of results

The single most common and most costly. "Responsible for managing the reporting pipeline" describes the job description. "Rebuilt the reporting pipeline in SQL, cutting manual work from 12 hours a week to under 2" describes you.

The test: cover the employer name. If the bullet could belong to anyone who held that title, rewrite it.

2. Sending the same resume everywhere

You do not need a new document each time. You need the top third — summary and first role's bullets — to reflect the advert in front of you. Twenty minutes per application, and it is the difference between a stack of rejections and a shortlist.

3. The wrong company name

Instantly fatal and entirely avoidable. It happens when documents are recycled at speed. Check it last, every time.

4. Unexplained gaps left to the imagination

A reader who sees eighteen unexplained months invents an explanation, and the invented one is usually worse than the truth. A short honest line — caring responsibilities, health, redundancy and job searching, study, travel — closes it. You are not obliged to give detail.

5. An email address that undermines you

A joke address from school, or a work email from your current employer. The first reads as careless; the second reads as someone using their employer's systems to look for other work.

6. Claiming skills you cannot demonstrate

It gets you into the interview and then out of it. Worse, it teaches the interviewer to doubt the rest of the document.

7. Typos in the first three lines

Errors further down get forgiven more often than people fear. Errors in your name, title or summary do not, because that is where attention is highest. Read the top third aloud before sending.

8. Layouts that fight the parser

Text in images, layout tables, contact details only in the footer. Not usually fatal on their own, but they make you hard to find in a database search, which is a slow invisible cost.

Things people worry about that do not matter

• Going to two pages. Normal with experience.
• Using colour. Fine. Use one accent, not five.
• Not having a photo. Correct for most English-speaking countries.
• A short stint you are embarrassed by. Leaving it out creates a gap, which is worse. Include it briefly.
• Non-linear career paths. Common now, and increasingly unremarkable.
• Not using a fashionable template. Content decides this, not decoration.

Common questions