You wish to get your desired job; you apply for it, but your application gets rejected. Not just once but it is keep on getting rejected wherever you are applying. Why? What mistakes are you making while building and submitting your resume?
Look, your resume is your first impression to that hiring person who have your resume in his/her hands, you are to going sell yourself to a company, so you need to build your first impression as good and robust as you can.
You should know that your submitted resume is the tool to land you on the interview before getting hired at your desired company.
So why not give it a thought that why your resume or CV is getting rejected and what you should do?
Your Resume doesn’t match the Job requirements
You might be the one that the employer is looking for, but your resume isn’t. Remember, you are entirely a stranger to the employer, so it’s your responsibility to make them realize that you are the right candidate for their company, or you are the person what they are looking for. And that you do by writing the right and relevant skills sets and experience in the resume that matches the job’s tasks and responsibilities. Give them what they want, show them how you are valuable to them.
The biggest mistake that everyone makes is, using the same resume to apply everywhere. Every job posting has a different set of requirements, different sets of criteria, then why are you using the same resume for all?
Instead, it would be best to customize your resume to fit what the company is searching for. Make sure your resume should sound like the job posting by putting in specific keywords.
The Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
You must know that when you apply for a job and submit your resume/CV, it will be processed through the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) before a human being looks at it. The system will shortlist your resume based on some specific keywords required for the job position, which the employer or the hiring person is already programming into the ATS. So, this is another good reason to customize your resume.
That’s why the keywords are essential. The more keywords the ATS system matches in your resume, the higher your rank will be, making it to the next round.
So, just grab those keywords and throw them in your resume.
The Next Round- A Human Being is having your resume but cannot read it
After making it through the system, all the shortlisted resumes land in the recruiter’s hands. Now look, they have many resumes with them; they don’t spend much time reading and evaluating all the resumes to determine the perfect candidate. They move with the ten or 15-second rule, which is the only time they spend looking a resume, so you got to make your case as outstanding and quick as you can. Do not add irrelevant information, ending up making a two or more-pager resume which they avoid reading.
Typeface/Fonts & Presentation does matter!
The typeface should be straightforward and easy to read, and the reader should not struggle reading your resume. Do not use multiple fonts; it should be a single font throughout the whole resume. Scripts and handwriting fonts should not be used; instead, sans-serif fonts are best recommended like – Arial, Calibri, Geneva, etc. These fonts give a corporate and professional look to the resume and are very easy to read. Make sure you are keeping a plenty of white space, which will make it to be able to see what is listed on the page. Twelve points size is recommended, do not keep it less than that.
Keeping margins to at least ½ inch will help the system to process your resume easily and read what you have written on that; these are some very critical points regarding the topic which are not told everywhere. Do not type too much unnecessary stuff that you run out of space missing the valuable points. Nobody is going to read it all. Avoid putting any Border, Tables, Charts, Columns just to make it look fancy a bit as they take enough good space and are more of a distraction that takes away the readability of the resume itself. The ATS system likes plain simple text.
You did not keep it Professional
Many people, especially most freshers, make this mistake of putting on unnecessary and personal stuff on their resumes. Keep that in mind that you are submitting a job application and not a personal application. They do not want to know about you as an individual but as a professional. Including information like your DOB, Gender, Marital Status, Race, Ethnic Origin, Religion, Age, Disability, etc., will show them that you are not a professional person. These kinds of information are inappropriate for a resume.
Do not include Non-Work/ Non-Professional Activities – Basketball champion, XYZ level soccer champion, etc.
Do not include things like Hard Working, Good Communication Skills, Management Skills, etc. try avoiding these as no one focuses on these.
Bonus Tip: You can add ‘Volunteer Works’ if you have done any. Adding Volunteer works can compel your good personality and add up to your chance of them adding you to their team.
You can add your College GPAs along with your College/University Name and Year of Graduation; it gives an idea of how academically strong you are, which can be a plus point for you to show your value. Some recruiters avoid resumes with no GPAs mentioned.
You can put your social URLs (e.g., LinkedIn) for the recruiter to check your skills, projects, works, ideas & thoughts, connections, relations, interests, etc., which can help them know about you as a professional person and how social good you are.
Try adding your top skills, software, or tech knowledge or tools which are somewhat related to your job position.
You Did Not Proofread
Make it a habit of rechecking something at least once before submitting. When you are done crafting your resume, you should read it all and check for spelling or grammatical mistakes. People mix tenses, somewhere in the present and somewhere in the past tense. Try paying attention to that.
Here’s a quick tip: Try writing your current job in the present tense and your past jobs and experiences in the past tense.
Not only that, but you should ask a third person who can be your friend or your relative to read that resume for you once. They can spot any mistakes better than you as a reader and ask for feedback which can help you improve that.
An error-free resume shows how professional you are and helps the details stand out.
If you are sending your resume directly to HR person via email
Keeping in mind that HR receives 100s of emails a day, so you got to send yours with proper and well-described subject lines, as most of the freshers send with no or random subject lines and file not properly renamed, which they ignore, and you end up receiving no response for your applied application.
Tip: Try mentioning your Full Name and the position you are applying for in the subject line, and the best way to rename your resume is – (Your Name–Job Title-YOE). Example – ‘Harpreet Singh Deau–Social Media Analyst-2 YOE’
Now, these were some significant points to know before you craft your next professional resume/CV and apply for your desired jobs.
Share these tips and reasons for a resume to get rejected with your friends who are freshers stepping into the corporate world.
All the Best for your Job Hunts!
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