7 Things to Remove From Your Resume

1. Irrelevant hobbies and interests which don’t relate to the job

Love collecting coins? Star Wars? Knitting? Most people have a hobby — however, your innate knowledge of Star Wars sadly won’t make you stand out from other candidates. Unless it directly applies to the job, employers really don’t care how you spend your free time, they’d prefer to focus more on whether or not you meet the requirements for the position.

Finally: the only time we recommend mentioning a hobby is when it directly relates to the job. For example: if you ‘dabble’ in crypto trading, and the job is finance-related, this would be a good hobby to add.

2. Soft-skills

Yes, listing soft-skills on your resume is a good thing — only to a certain extent.

What are some examples of soft skills?

• Communication.
• Adaptability.
• Leadership.
• Teamwork.
• Time management.
• Emotional intelligence.
• Organization.
• Collaboration.

If you overdo your resume with soft skills — it can come across as a cover for a lack of ‘hard’ skills — the skills you need to demonstrate you’re a capable candidate and fit the criteria required for the position.

Hard skills can include:

• A degree (or other academic qualification)
• An industry-specific certification.
• Coding ability.
• Foreign language skills.
• Typing speed.
• SEO marketing.
• Bookkeeping.
• Computer skills

4. Saying “I” too much in job descriptions

Yes, this is a very specific thing to note, but will ensure that employers are aware of your attention to detail.

As it’s your resume, it’s already implied that everything on it is about you (as it should be!). Therefore, instead of writing “I was in charge of 3 employees”, write “managed 3 employees. This shows that you understand the assignment, and are aware of exactly what content (and therefore message) you are giving prospective employees.

5. An unprofessional email address.

Employers want prospective candidates who are at least slightly tech-savvy — the easiest way to weed out who is and isn’t it is simply by checking what email addresses you’re using.

So what’s ‘professional’ and what’s not?

NOT: Your first email address, which was something like coolgurl69@hotmail.com

Employees want candidates who are at least somewhat tech-savvy — that means not having an email address from an outdated account like AOL or Hotmail.

When in doubt, just stick with a Gmail or Outlook address.

6. Your postal address

Including your mailing address on your resume used to be standard practice.

But if you’re looking to relocate and apply for remote jobs (or virtual internships), it may be wise to leave it out, especially because some employers may only consider ‘local’ candidates.

Recruiters don’t need to know exactly where you live during the early stages of the hiring process. Instead, consider expressing that you intend/ are open to relocating within the resume and/or cover letter.

7. ‘Old jobs’

Unless you’re a senior executive with decades of experience, it is not advised that you include jobs you had over a decade ago.

Basically, the older the job (unless it was at a big, well-known company, or is closely related to the job you want), the less hiring managers will care about it.

Exceptions to this rule include:

• If it’s a well-known company (think Apple/Google).
• The title is closely related to the job you want.
• You possess skills to align with the required skills for the job you’re applying for.

Rather than using outdated work experience, we recommend utilizing that precious resume space to provide the details of more recent jobs and accomplishments.

8. Grammatical errors and spelling mistakes

This is a pretty straightforward thing to understand.

Want to look unprofessional and as though you don’t care about the role? Send in a resume with numerous spelling and grammatical errors!

Thankfully, fixing these possible mistakes is simple. If you are in doubt, have a pair of ‘fresh eyes’ look over it. It’s amazing how many simple mistakes can be spotted by a second pair of eyes. Another option is a program like Grammarly.

Once you’ve finished refreshing your resume, why not put it to good use? Programs like Virtual Internships offer the opportunity to increase your employability and add value to your resume, which makes you so much more appealing to employers!