Is Your Resume 2 Cute 4 U 2 B Hired?

Photo credit: el_finco / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Ah, the age of technology is fully upon us. Whether we embrace it whole-heartedly or not, we’re now unavoidably soaking in it. Text messages, IM and Twitter dominate the communication landscape and—no matter how hard we may try—there’s just no avoiding these things. But that doesn’t mean we have to live our lives in 140 characters or less. We don’t have to add emoticons to every other sentence just so the reader understands we’re feeling “frowny face” or “winky smily face”. And we certainly don’t have to abbreviate any word more than a syllable long and add exclamation points to demonstrate excitement. All that cutesy stuff has its place, yes. But that place is—most certainly—NOT your resume.

Big No No’s

The two biggies to avoid are:

1. Textese (things like OMG, LOL, WTF and the like). While you might think this adds an element of “personality,” it really comes off as looking overly casual and childish. You’re not making a new friend on Twitter; you’re trying to get a new job. You’re limited in space but not THAT limited. Don’t replace “to” with 2 or “be” with B, etc.
2. Emoticons. No smiley faces or frowney faces. Period. Again, you may be inclined to think this adds levity and helps demonstrate your point-of-view, but focus on making your writing speak for itself. If you need a smiley face to punctuate your words, find more powerful words.

Clean Up Your Email

It’s also time to say “sayonara” to your adorably silly email address. No more BeerGoggles@…com or Peek-a-Boo@…com. It might seem insignificant but recruiters and HR Managers notice inappropriate or immature language used in email addresses. In fact, a recent article on MSN asked hiring managers about the weird and wacky things they’ve seen on resumes and, not surprisingly, this one came up:

An e-mail address: pinkpoodle@…com (How seriously can you take this person? How professional does this e-mail look if used on our behalf?)

Email addresses are fast and free to create so take advantage. Get a professional sounding address that you can use exclusively for your job search. You may even want to create an address that matches your personal brand—but be careful! Don’t go overboard. AndrewAwesomeSalesGuy@…com might be a little much. Usually, it’s best to just stick with something simple—first name and last name and maybe a number if needed.

Forget File Name Fun

This seems to be an annoying but popular new trend. The last time I hired someone, I got quite a few of these. I received resume files labeled OhBoy.doc, HeyThere.doc and HireMe.doc. Using a unique file name is certainly eye-catching but, again, it speaks to your professionalism. It’s generally a better rule to simply use your name.

In the same article referenced above, one hiring manager had this to say:

Some applicants gave me too much information in the name of their resume. For example, ‘LizSmithCorrectedResume’ [What if I preferred the incorrect version?] or ‘Moms Resume.’ [Hey Mom ... are your kids returning the favor for all of the homework you did for them in school? Are you going to have them do your job for you once you're hired as well?]

Consider what your file name might be saying about you. Yes, it’s a small detail. But obviously, these things are noticed. And while the temptation to be “cute” is great, your number one goal is to demonstrate professionalism and ultimately get the job.

Document Properties and Metadata

Another thing to be aware of is the Metadata that programs like Microsoft Word embed in your resume file. Although often overlooked, much is revealed to an astute hiring professional simply by right clicking on your resume file.

Here’s an example of what may be hidden behind the scenes of your resume, especially if you’ve borrowed a template or re-purposed a friend’s resume.

Great, so who cares? Well, the problem is that this resume came from a candidate named Mandy Smith. Mandy was deliberate enough to label her file correctly “Mandy Smith Professional Resume.doc”, but the document properties show this used to be the resume of Ernest Burnley. While this seems innocent enough, there’s no telling what’s lurking in the properties of your resume file.

In our next article, we’ll detail the in’s and out’s of removing, adding and enhancing your resume through the use of document properties.