The 5 Worst Mistakes You Can Make When Writing Your Resume and How to Avoid Them

Let's face it, nobody is perfect. All job-hunters have something they don't want the interviewer to ask. This could be something about your past or a lack of experience in a critical area.

Listed below are the 5 most common problems that job-hunters face and some tips on how to minimize their impact.

1 - Too Young - Emphasize experience and accomplishments. Personal traits via words like fast learner, aggressive, drive, eager to learn and take on new challenges and responsibilities, etc. should be used and stressed.

Unless you are a recent college grad, leave off such things as college projects when it comes to listing specific experience.

2 - Too Old - Old is a relative term. Some people think anyone over 40 is too old whereas a Billion Dollar Fortune 500 company looking for a CEO might think a 40 year old is too young.

If you are concerned about your age, you may want to leave off certain dates such as college graduation, discharge form the military, etc. and any other dates where the hiring manager can "do the math" and "back into" knowing how old you are.

If you have a 40-year career with 10 companies, it is not necessary to go back to and list your first job.

Just leave it off your resume and when you are called in for an interview and questioned about jobs not listed on your resume, just reply that you were concentrating on your most recent and relevant experience.

3 - Not Enough Experience - Try to find some previous life experience that you've gotten and apply it the job you are seeking. A functional resume would help you stress this experience versus a chronological resume.

4 - Job Hoppers - Although not as much of an issue as it used to be, people who do change jobs often still need to understand that hiring managers still will want to know why you have moved around so much.

One of the ways to minimize how often you've changed jobs is to use a functional resume. Use only years when listing dates of employment, leave off companies that you worked for less than 6-9 months.

I personally consider these types of jobs more consulting assignments.

5 - Currently Unemployed - Again, the stigma of being unemployed is not what it used to be. The only thing that would show up on your resume that would even indicate that you were unemployed is the dates you show on your last job.

In other words, if you wrote ABC Company 1/94 - 12/04 and it is June 2005. The hiring manager will obviously want to know what is going on.

In this situation, you can and should do a few things. First as already indicated, do not list the months employed when providing dates of employment.

This will help if and when you have a lapse from Company A where you worked from 1/94 - 6/98 and Company B where you started 11/98 - Present.

Simply by eliminating the months your resume shows Company A - 1994 - 1998 and Company B 1998 - Present.

When you know you may be out of work for an extended period, I would start your own consulting business and list that on your resume. Your consulting business could read something like Jones Consulting, 2004-Present.

Whether you are doing non-profit consulting while you are looking for full time employment or are working on your own special project like writing a book, having a consulting business will help show the continuity of continued employment.

If you go the consulting route, you may want to print up business cards and stationary as well as change your telephone answering machine message to reflect the fact that you have a legitimate consulting practice.

Just remember that spending some time preparing your resume up-front will minimize and sometimes eliminate the need to explain your special situation.