Common resume mistakes in the IT industry

Submitted by Patrick Grote on Mon, 04/21/2008 - 4:57pm.

We're in the middle of hiring a couple of people for our teams at work, which means you have to look at a ton of resumes. The group responsible for our recruiting does an excellent job in gathering possible candidates. As I read through the technical resumes a few things pop out to me. Common mistakes that many people seem to make appear after the 50th resume, so I thought I'd pass on what I've seen. Maybe you could use it to avoid any problems.

I was going to use screenshots from the actual resumes, but decided against it due to privacy issues.

Here are the five most common mistakes I see in today's resumes:

Table of technical experience: Maybe it's my ego, but I take partial responsibility for this. In the early 1990s I started using a simple table to list my technical skills. I listed the big ones to draw attention to the areas I've focused on. The idea is that it would quickly let a hiring manager see the areas I mastered. In today's resumes I see tables of technical experience that list items such as LAN, WAN and four types of printers. It gets worse when people list things such as all versions of Windows back to 3.11. If you're going to use a table leave the generalities off. I;m a smart guy, so if I see Cisco 2600 I pretty much know you are comfortable with WANs and LANs. (The following resume was found in Google Images)

Misspellings: Word has this cool feature of showing you squiggly lines under words you misspell. It's a good idea to ensure you are squiggly free, especially if you send the resume as an attachment. The squiggly lines draw the hiring manager's eyes. The funniest I've seen this time around is a misspelling on the previous titles listed.

Too many positions: In the IT world it's not uncommon to have worked at many sites, especially if you're a consultant. Don't list each place you worked with a lengthy explanation of what you did. If you can't explain it in a line or two it wasn't impressive. Again, it's ok to list the fact you were a consultant, but don't make it look like you worked for the client.

It's a business: Yes, technical skills are important, but you need to demonstrate how you impacted the business with those skills. It's impressive to list that you rolled out 1,000 new PCs, but it's more impressive to show no downtime, cost savings or business impacts. You don't need detailed ROI projections, but make an effort to show how your technical experience helped. In today's world the IT industry is becoming more and more a commodity. You need to become part of the business solutions.

Filenames: Since the last time we hired people this mistake seems pervasive. Many people have begun naming their resume files based on a particular spin. "LAN focus - name.doc" or "manager-name.doc" signify to me that you have multiple resumes, which leads me to believe you're spamming the employment ads. Simply name your resume "name.doc." If you've read the posting for the position it's ok to change your resume to play up the requirements we're looking for. No problem, just don't make it obvious you are simply looking at the title, sending the "other" resume.

Hiring for an IT position is an investment of time and money, so it's in your benefit to make the process as easy as possible for the hiring manager.