Avoiding Common Mistakes on the Resume More and more individuals in Salt Lake City are deciding to return to school to finish their education and

gain valuable degrees in various areas of study. But holding a degree in business administration in Salt

Lake or becoming a certified nursing administrator is not the final step for graduating students looking

for employment.

The Importance of Doing Resume’s Right Yes, obtaining a degree from an accredited university or online program is a vital step for many to

achieve their career goals, but even after reaching the monumental milestone of graduation day, there

is still yet more that an individual must do before they will be able to land the dream job they have been

working towards. One of the most basic and indispensable steps towards reaching that goal of the

perfect job, or at least one that will pay a person well for their

services, is creating a functional and useful resume.

Many individuals have their own opinions on what a resume

should look like, include, and address, but the standards for

resumes are fairly straight forward. Most, in fact almost all,

resumes should be limited to one page in length, neatly

organized, of a professional appearance, and contain the

qualifications, certifications, work experience, and desirable

personal qualities of the applicant.

But even with these general guidelines of a quality resume,

there are still those college graduates and job seekers who make one of two common resume mistakes.

These mistakes are easy to spot by hiring officials and should be avoided by those applicants who truly

wish their resume to be effective.

Extracurricular Activities The first common mistake that many college students make when rewriting their resumes after

graduation is over listing their extracurricular actives. Beyond

meaningful volunteer work, resume builders should strive to

avoid listing every little hobby they pursue or the names of

each after school club they participate in.

While listing some extracurricular activities is helpful, especially

if the activities pertain in some way with the duties of the job

being applied for, listing out every detail of one’s hobbies

simply to fill space on the resume will be seen as a negative in

the eyes of the hiring official. Instead, a person writing their updated resume should focus their

personal section, where such extracurricular activities would be listed, on those activities that provided

them with skills or characteristics that will aid them in the job they are applying for.

Using Weak Verbs The second common mistake that resume builders unknowingly stumble into is the pitfall of using weak

verbs. Verbs comprise the action words of the English language and can be used to great effect in

impressing a hiring official.

In the same way that a weak verb or string of weak verbs can make a qualification or experience on a

resume seem uninteresting to a reader, likewise can a strong verb or proper verb usage create interest

in a resume and highlight important characteristics or skills of the applicant. For example, if the

applicant gave workshops for an academic club, instead of stating “gave lessons to others in a club

setting,” one might wish to throw more meaningful verbs into the mix like “Hosted and conducted

instructional workshops for professionals and students.”

The difference in verb usage on resumes could help many recent college grads land the jobs they desire.

Avoiding fluff material in the extracurricular section and allowing verbs to impress qualities upon the

hiring official will allow college grads in Salt Lake to find success as they go through the process of

finding a job.