46. Mistakes in resume

I have been reading several resumes recently and noticed a few things worth mentioning.

Font. It is really hard to understand for me, why some people decrease the font size to the limits of the common sense. I really think that size 10 is absolute minimum, so that the reader doesn?t have to keep the head right in front of the screen or paper.

Picture. First of all, there should be a picture! If you don?t attach it, a suspicion may be arousen, that you?re a monster. Well, at least I will think that. However I?m pretty sure that other readers will definitely not think anything positive. At best, they won?t think anything. And that?s clearly not the point.
One doesn?t have to have especially pretty face in order to attach a photo. The aim is clear ? the reader would like to have an idea, who he is dealing with. By inserting your pic you create the impression that your face speaks from the page. What relates to it, the face should be as proffessional as possible, while also slightly smiling. Too much seriousness is not recommended?
It is best to take a photo at the photographer?s! If you however take the one from the private archive, please avoid pictures with dark background, ?artistic? frames around face. These are better for facebook. Recently I?ve seen also photo taken with a mobile probably ? assumption based on the dimensions and quality of the image.
Another interesting things I saw cv with a pic of a man, whose head was resting on a fist. It was probably styled to remind thinking process? didn?t work out. There was something funny also about women ? a photo of a face with sunglasses on the hair, and a beach in the background. No comments.

Listing experiences. Remember to always put first (on top ? from the reader?s perspective) the latest. For every recruiter these will be more important than experiences several years old, so don?t make their work harder. The same with education. Secondary school shown at the top of ?Education? section I?m reading as a trick intended to divert my attention from the university or post-grade.
By the experience, apart from dates, company and position it is necessary, what were you exactly doing. Point ?Company X, Specialist? communicates to the reader more or less nothing. It seems obvious to you, but I have a right not to have a faintest idea, what you were doing on such position.

Trainings / Development. If you were able to attend many trainings, it?s really great and I hope it benefited your career heavily. Nevertheless, as a potential manager, I am only interested in those, which may be somehow relevant to the position offered. Other you can omit.

Language. Not even grammary, but also interpunction is important. It may be really difficult to properly understand even short sentence, if author has put commas in randomly selected places.

Children names. I understand that stating in resume that one has children may make sense. It possibly shows that we are dealing with responsible and trustworthy person. I?m wondering however if quoting names of the children isn?t too much. The only positive outcome you may get if the reader has selected for own children the same names.

Recommendations. Once I almost fell of the chair after finding the letter of recommendation in the application. There would be nothing strange in it, if not one detail. The letter related to the work of the candidate on a position, that was not listed in resume! Simply he started to list his experience from the latter position, forgetting about the one he had recommendation.

I hope that abovementioned examples will help you to avoid weak points in your cv. Questions and comments welcome.