Biggest Resume Mistakes And How To Fix Them (According To Google's ex-Head of HR)

A while back, Google’s former Senior Vice President of People Operations and HR, Laszlo Bock, made a LinkedIn post about the biggest mistakes he has seen in resumes, and why Google throws them away. He has personally reviewed more than 20,000 resumes over the course of his career, and is a master with plenty of experience in his field. This is what he stated the 5 biggest mistakes are, and how to fix them!

1. Typos

Bock writes, “this one seems obvious but it happens again and again. A 2013 CareerBuilder survey found that 58% of resumes have typos.”

How To Fix

Ask someone else to read your resume often.

Other people can easily spot errors because they haven’t been staring at the page for hours.

If that is not possible, leave your resume for a week or so, and come back with a fresh mind so you can slowly proofread through it, and you might be able to spot mistakes that you weren’t able to before.

It sometimes helpful to temporarily change the font, or to read your resume from the bottom up as your eyes get used to reading a page one way and can usually catch new errors when you mix the format up!

Once your resume is reviewed, stop making those final tiny changes.

Studies show that people who tweak their resumes the most carefully can be especially vulnerable to making new errors.

According to Bock, this is “because they often result from going back again and again to fine tune their resume just one last time. And in doing so, a subject and verb suddenly doesn’t match up, ora period is left in the wrong place, or a set of dates gets knocked out of alignment.”

2. Length

Thinking about letting your resume creep onto the next page? Think again!

“A good rule of thumb is one page of resume for every 10 years of working experience,” says Bock.

“A crisp, focused resume demonstrates an ability to synthesize, prioritize, and convey the most important information about you.”

How To Fix

For most of us, Bock’s rule of thumb means one page, maximum two!

If you’re having trouble squeezing all of your experience onto one page,

 remember that a resume should not be a chronicle of your entire career history.

It should be a marketing document that uses your relevant skills and experience to illustrate to the hiring manager why you’re the one for the job.

Try to focus on what really matters and cut the irrelevant information accordingly.

3. “Creative” Formatting

When it comes to resumes, Bock says, substance definitely matters more than style.

A simple, traditional and perfectly formatted resume is preferred over something creative that is difficult to read.

“ Unless you’re applying for a job such as a designer or artist, your focus should be on making your resume clean and legible,” he writes.

How to fix

When in doubt, go simple and spend most of your time sharpening your bullet points rather than making them look great.

You can source online for a resume template for free and download it to have an outline of how to format it.

Make sure the formatting looks great no matter what program it is opened in.

Bock recommends, “If you can, look at it in both Google Docs and Word, and then attach it to an emial and open it as a preview.”

Saving your resume as a PDF rather than a .doc file should help fix any formatting problems in in different programs.

4. Confidential Information

In his post, Bock shares a story of a candidate who worked for a top consulting firm with a strict confidentiality policy.

So, when the candidate wrote on his resume that he “consulted to a major software company in Redmond, Washington” , a.k.a Microsoft, he was immediately rejected.

Sure, the candidate didn’t break the policy, per se, but he definitely didn’t inspire trust in his potential employer.

How to fix

For anything you put on your resume (or say in an interview, or publish on a blog etc), follow the general rule of thumb that “if you wouldn’t want to see it posted on the front page of the newspaper with your name attached, don’t put it on your resume.”

5. Lies

Bock explains: “People lie about their degrees (three credits shy of a college degree is not a degree), GPAs (I’ve seen hundreds of people “accidentally” round their GPAs up)...and where they went to school (sorry, but employers don’t view a degree granted online for “life experience” as the same as UCLA or Seton Hall).”

People lie about how long they were at companies, how big their teams were, and their sales results, always goofing in their favor.”

And we propably don’t have to tell you what hiring managers think about that.

How to fix

Always remember what your mom told you : Honesty is always the best policy.

If you feel like there is a part of your background that is not quite up to level, your best bet is creative but truthful positioning.

To apply for a job you are underqualified for, highlight transferable skills and sell yourself as a good addition to the company regardless.

These mistakes may seem pretty basic, but if Google sees them all the time, you can bet every other employer does too. The good news is, they are all easily fixed and avoidable. Just make sure your 1-2 page resume is clean and honest, and you are already ahead of your competition!