"generic fluff" on a resume is funny, but also funny are the "generic fluff" littered in every single job posting I've ever seen.

Also, it's really annoying to apply to those company websites that forces you to retype all your stuff in their mold. Even some 'easy apply' are corrupted and still require that lazy garbage.

I once helped someone from a North African country with their resume and they were very nervous about including their skills and accomplishments because apparently, there, you NEVER want to come off as more competent than the boss 😂 So unlike in the US where you have to play up your experience, there, you have to downplay what you know to come off as nonthreatening. Weird!

I work for HR and I am always blown away by our judgement of others when most corporations are highly disfunctional at best. I like to see people who can handle anything thrown at them because employment is never what it seems. That comes from the actual interview so I don't want to judge based on words. Most people use generic templates.Grammar and clarity are important.

What he calls fluff - I'm a teamplayer; I have great interpersonal skills' The job posting - 'looking for a teamplayer with great interpersonal skills' 🤣

First off, i have spoken to MANY recruiters and they all say they same thing: if your over 55 your chances are very low at obtaining a position, yet these people have amazing skills! A lot of them bring excellent work ethics, and they bring good value to a job. As a CIO I place ads myself and skip the HR nonsense because they just dont understand what I look for in a candidate. I have interviewed both young and older candidates as well. I look for work ethics, how you think, your hobbies, what you do in your off hours or down time. I want someone who is passionate about what they want to do for a living. You may be an entry level coder, but have a thirst to learn more. You may be older and willing to teach some things you know to others. I want to know how you will contribute to the team and the company. You can teach just about ANYONE to code but i want someone who can think beyond code

I've worked at a staffing agency for the last 7 months and am amazed at some of the resumes we receive. Notable ones include: 1) a woman who started out with the fact that she is a Capricorn and Capricorns are diligent, persistent, etc., 2) a 10+-page resume, 3) a young guy who swore in the first paragraph (I am willing to work my a$$ off). 4) Someone who simply put their contact info, followed by the sentence "I need a job". (That was their resume). LOL.

I tend to skip this kind of videos because they are either full of motivational nonsense or way too cut-and-dry, as if resumes were a one-size-fits-all kind of thing but I thing you cut to the chase very well and made a lot of sense. I would definitely hire you as HR lol

Font tip: use only fonts that are built-in to PDF. Typically Times/Courier/Helvetica. Anything else could be licensed, with restrictions. I once received a resume that looked fine on-screen, but the font that was used was licensed for display-only, printing not permitted. So I print it out and get thousands of little boxes on the paper in place of the letters...

Also several employeers dont really know how to publish a position nor does it ever seem to make a whole lot of sense when your reading it.

having a decade in retail management and being involved in the hiring process..those employers are looking for "responded to customer in timely.." fluff. Also, having experience in sales, they look for "improved bottom line, reduced expenses.." my point, some fields look for fluff, others don't. so know who to "fluff"

What if your job is a task-oriented job? Maybe you don't have any accomplishments because the job does not lend itself to accomplishments

If employers are looking for particular keywords to search for in resumes, and they don't necessarily apply to you, you can always add them in the margins in white font so that they can't be seen. That way the computer program will pick them up and your resume will be manually read rather than being automatically rejected.

As a former 25 year Dir. Talent and Org. Development (who worked in HR all that time) I appreciate your compact, practical tips and guidance. Truly on-point! Great job!

One thing to keep in mind when applying or interviewing is that people hiring (whether they realize it or not) aren't so much looking to see if what you've done is impressive, but rather taking a base-line assumption that your application meets their needs and then seeing if there's anything on your resume or the interview that will disprove that assumption. So, many will be looking for red flags as opposed to indicators that you are a qualified candidate, to disqualify you as opposed to qualify you..

I really like the idea of story arcs rather than simply listing daily tasks. That makes it a lot easier to keep your resume concise. What if one of the story arcs didn’t have a happy ending? I mentioned this in another video. Advocacy or supporting a disabled elderly person to advocate for herself as the example. I did a lot for and with this person but I didn’t win! 😢 Psychologically, I am still affected. I am also still not working.

Job Posting: Seeking experienced candidate in X, Y, and Z. Candidate's resume: I have several years of experience doing X, Y, and Z. Recruiter: X, Y, and Z are tasks. I don't care about that...Next!

As an overseas viewer, yes we do put photos on resumes as well as hobbies.

I want my potential employer to work for it, that's why I use the font Wingdings.

Why is volunteer work so undervalued? Employers seem to think that people only volunteer because they can't get paid for the work.

Skills based CV has worked very well for me - it depends on the sector you work in (I work in healthcare as a therapist). Point 3 in this video is absolutely 100% accurate.

I interviewed one firmware developer who put on his resume that he wrote all of his code in assembly language and refused to write C code. I explained to him that he should remove “refuse to write C” section from his resume because most firmware is written in C/C++. The candidate was clearly skilled at his profession but he was not hired due to his sociopathic behavior.

I come from Czech republic, EU and we have quite the common practice to just erase any work experience from your CV that isn't relevant. I did quite a lot of job hopping especially when I was young but my CV doesn't really show that. No one ever asked me about the gaps in my CV although I would be happy to explain them.

Can you explain HR software use by recruiters? Do people read resumes or just a computer doing queries? If "fluff" is so bad, then why do so many job descriptions seem to have "fluff" in them? Statements akin to what was mentioned in the video or about the company snack options on a Tuesday! :)

As an exception to the 2 page rule. Science and engineering roles typically have publications and patents that need to be listed, my publications and patents themselves take up more than a page. As a hiring manager this section is critical.

If I ever feel the need to add extra stuff to my resume, I just add any extra information onto a separate document and end up writing my cover letter. I got hired a few months ago at my current job and the guy who did the recruiting said he rarely sees cover letters anymore. So that was a bonus point.

Thank you for the advice. I made two major changes to my resume right after watching this. I'm one of those who've sent out countless resumes over the last 3 years and have not heard back from a single application 😥

Jokes on you, I'm not a team player and have no interpersonal skills.

I would love to see this revisited now that employers are more reliant on large language models to screen resumes before recruiters even see them. I had a former coworker get an automated rejection less than 5 min after submitting his resume, so it's clear a machine parsed and rejected it.

Keep it simple, write the resume to match the posting. Be honest but match your qualifications and experience to the specific duties and responsibilities listed in the posting. Mimicking their needs is the easiest way to be identified as their solution.

Depends upon the job. Scientist here, I have a 4-5 page resume. I focus on what the company needs. I describe my contributions to each accomplishment and make a list of company specific critical skills.

"I don't want to know how old you are" Phones the high school you said you graduated at and asks them what year you graduated.

I'd add some observations. I used to work at a recruitment advertising agency as an IT person, and during my time at the company, I wrote a resume collection system. The company gathered resumes from different sources and published them in a book to distribute to clients looking for people to hire. While working on the system and testing its document handling, I looked at thousands of resumes, and I was struck by how bad most resumes looked and read. As a result of my experience, I tell people several things. * DO NOT make grammatical or spelling errors in the resume. Mistakes stand out like a sore thumb. Your resume should have perfect grammar and spelling. There's an understated power to a resume that doesn't have any obvious faults. People will be struck just by how it stands out for lacking any obvious faults. * DO NOT write, format, and edit at the same time. The word processor introduced the practice, and when people do all three at the same time, they typically do not do any of them well. Write your content, edit it, walk away for a time and proofread for mistakes, have someone else proofread it for mistakes, and finally, spend time to format it and make it look nice. Loop back to editing as needed. DO NOT change content like single words to change formatting. * Send your resume in a format like PDF. If you send the resume as an MS-Word document, the format could change when the resume is viewed by a user with a different version of MS-Word or different system fonts as might be the case when the user uses a different platform. I've seen resumes that looked like perfect two-page resumes in MS-Word on Windows reflow text to have one widowed line on a third page when viewed on a Macintosh. If you generate a PDF, you should be able to control the generation to get the PDF output to embed the fonts and get a consistent look no matter the platform or software used to view the resume.

I was an assistant operations manager for a data storage company. One day I got tired of hearing my boss complain about having to review resume's so I opened my big mouth and said something to the effect, it can't be that bad. He dropped a stack of resume's on my desk and said go for it. To this day I can't believe what people will send to a company as a "resume".

I get it: Make a resume that has robotic arms to grab the HR person.

3:15 what if I don't have accomplishments in my career? because I was recruited to do tasks basically.

Applying for engineering position Skills: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power Point, Windows Calculator

I have had the same design on my resume since mid-00's :D It's getting kind of hard to update nowadays since MS Word has updated like 8 times and the formatting is getting extremely hard to edit properly without weird page breaks and stuff. I have gotten praise about the design tho so I guess my resume somewhat stands out.

I disagree with all that business about "How you improved a process or affected the bottom line". When I'm reviewing resumes I want to see that you can do the job I'm trying to fill--period. I don't give a crqp about how much money you think you saved your dept when you did such-and-such.

Most Recruiters have no idea what the "actual job" entails other than the bullet format of expectations. Especially third-party companies contracted to hire employees for another company or business!

I would love to follow this advice but I know my resume is being read by a machine first so I need to add fluff to meet the requirements. If recruiters werent so lazy then we could keep our resume to the point.

Im a graphic designer, but I also have done office management work. When looking for work I took off the unrelated positions. However this makes me have time gaps in my employment... How would you recommend fixing this??

In construction writing what "tasks" you've done is definately recommended.

Why don't you show us an example instead of being ambiguous? Why is it so hard just lay it out show us a resume of someone you would hire.

Crazy how the CV culture differs in the US and in europe, at least in scandinavia. I'm taking these 'mistakes' with a grain of salt at least

Fantastic insight! Revising my resume’ now. Thank you so much for this video. ☺️🙏

Included marketing funnel diagrams in my CV (cover letter though). Get's me calls, because it speaks more than a written word can. So I'd say, YMMV?

Thank you a million times thank you. I was applying for jobs I knew I was well qualified for and not getting ANY calls back and I was very frustrated about to pay a company to redo my resume! UNNECESSARY you saved me money so I subscribed and I’ll be taking your boot camp and revising my OWN resume!!!!! Your video is priceless!!!!!

What are your thoughts on how this applies to IT/Technology candidates in regards to tasks/accomplishments. In some aspects, if your resume doesn't have key words that are required for the role, that resume doesn't even get picked up, even if they have a bunch of accomplishments.

I'm currently applying for a VA Administration job opportunity. Do you have any videos on how to tailor your federal resume and cover letter? If not, will you please make a video of suggestions. Thank you for sharing your extensive knowledge! I appreciate you.

Your videos are great! Thank you for your time.

So I have a few issues with job postings and recruiters. First if the job posting says relocations assistance available why do recruiters shy away from someone who is not geo located? Second, if you don't want to pay out relocation, don't add it on the job listing. Let it be an added bonus during the interview process. And lastly, I had to start adding Relocation Assistance not Required to my resume just to get an interview for jobs I applied to previously. So it looks like recruiters don't really look at the resume as much as they look at your location before they contact you. Extremely frustrating.

i'm a fresher in mechanical engineering . graduated in Aug 2021. No other accomplishment. From this video , I'm convinced i wont be getting any job soon ! . My resume is blank .

In my field, the shortage of workers is so severe that if there is an opening (and there very often is) where you want to work and you have the proper diplomas, you almost automatically get called in for an interview and only when you get there the prospective boss will quickly review your resumee. I'm graduating at the moment and my job interviews so far have been 5-10 minutes of the manager explaining the job to me and asking why I got interested in the particular specialization, then passing me off to someone else to give me a tour of the place. On the flip side, I've seen some hilariously (and upsettingly) incompetent workers get a pass because there's nobody to replace them)...

Thanks for the second page

As a graphic designer, I've never heard anyone pronounce "serif" that way 😁 Jokes aside, thanks for all the great info as usual! From your advice, my biggest challenge in my current resume is outlining my accomplishments rather than the tasks from my previous jobs.

This is why once I get in with an interview, I put them in the hot seat with very challenging and intimidating questions, want to make sure they are a “good fit.”

Thanks you so much you help me with your videos to my dream job working at ritz carlton company

I'm a first-time employer and I'll be recruiting staff soon. I'm not looking forward to reading 200 resumes! I hope they're concise and to the point!

You describe everything very clearly. thanks for this video :)

What strategies do you recommend for applicants whose past few years' experience is low level and/or not relevant to the target role? Should you list the relevant but old experience first or stick to chronological order?

I almost lost out on an internship because I had a resume longer than a single page. (The internship was during graduate school and I had a career prior to graduate school.) The recruiter had faxed the resume to the hiring manager but only sent through the first page.

Very informative but also bitter pill to swallow. Guilty as charged on all counts! Kidding. Yeah I switched over from the chronological format to a list of relevant skills years ago, but I can’t remember the source. I haven’t had a job interview in years, as I have been working as an IC for 14 years. I cringe when asked for dates, and yes it is due to ageism. It doesn’t matter anyway, because they will still ask you to put your work/education experience in order according to time on a job application. My second common error is the generic fluff part. “Team player” and “interpersonal skills” yep! These were me. It’s funny that you state generic fluff because the generic fluff examples come from outdated generic job search training groups (quite often free). I disagree with you on one of your points though. Why not include volunteer work? Volunteer jobs give you reference letters. My volunteer gigs (not many) even if not directly related to job tells a story about some of those interpersonal skills. In “What Colour Is Your Parachute?” They said to include it. For some people, that’s all they have, not only students, but someone having to look after a sick or disabled spouse, parent or child. Use your own judgement. Volunteer work also depends on the field. An example of volunteer work is anything to do with social justice. If you are applying for a therapist, facilitator, nurse, coach or even teacher, social justice volunteer experience counts. You’re not just sitting on the fence doing nothing or tweeting all day long about your complaints. You’re putting in the hard work, which takes time and energy. You’re often dealing with disappointment when the outcomes were not what you were expecting. One thing you didn’t mention is how to format education. This history will definitely give away your age. Which order to include it? Before or after work history? Should you include a career objective or save it for the interview (should you get one)? Thanks.

Generic fluff--Yes, I agree. But that language about being both a team player and being able to work independently are often on job descriptions. If those words are not on my resume, it won't get pass the electronic word matching software to get my resume to a recruiter even though many positions obviously require both working well on a team and working independently as needed when clearly my past job accomplishments demonstrated both.

What to do if my roles only included tasks and no accomplishments? Like shelving books at a city library?

What if you have 17 years doing the same thing, but the experience for the job you're applying was 26 years ago?

Today a lot of resumes are being read by machines. You're very concise and don't have enough keywords there you'll just get discarded and human will never see it. I wonder if there's a good way to preserve the keywords and yet be concise. Speaking of fluff have you ever seen how much actual fluff recruiters put on a job description? Also demanding only accomplishments is illogical because most of your day will not be accomplishments but day-to-day responsibilities. Still completely agree with a two-page limit and being ruthless about cutting down content.

Learned some good tips from your videos. But honestly never been this confused and frustrated as I am in this stage of my life and career. Seems like I'm doing everything wrong. Man! Must be nice to be a recruiter...

I have several short term consultancies as well as employment. I can only reflect my experience with a skills based resume including a chronological summary with dates at the end. But I appreciate it is confusing for a hiring manager. Is there a way to make it less confusing?

getting past the ATS rejection chain system and recruiter to hire manager is difficult as it is but massive competition due to tech layoffs has made things 1000x worse!

You think candidates spend a lot of time on their resume, yet you only take five seconds of your time to even look at it.

This was fantastic! Thank you.

Great advice, but what if in my early career, I was at a company for more than 20 years, and now switched industries but still have relevant experience as well as a new education and minimal experience??? How do the dates look then, examples please???

I get noticed by recruiters because I put all my jobs but as they age on I condense the bullets down 25 years is a lot. You can take the first two pages and get the jest of what I am about but if you want the full story it there too. In software engineering the skill list themselves is at least half a page.

I don't have dates in my resume...In the applying process there's almost always an application...that's where I put dates, b.c tht is a legal document....and often times, I don't remember exact ones...

This was great. I will be sharing this with my students, thank you !

this is very helpful, i feel like i wanna call you to write mine for me. THANKS A LOT

"Including your photograph," cracked me up. Well, some people need practical advice.

Question on placing the skills section. Why would one structure their skills section at the top rather then traditional bottom or middle? Input please?

I have been an independent contractor for like 8 years - had good corporate experience before that …. Any advise on that ?

what about project workers who get hired to get the job done and let go afterwards?

what do you do if you want to change careers? Let's say I got the education and certifications, but no experience. How do I break into a new industry?

As far as the résumé not having dates. From what I understand, that's fine if you're going through the hidden job market and/or giving your résumé to hiring managers. However, if you're giving your résumé to a recruiter, the preferred format would be reverse chronological order.

I've got my resume for my last job. I worked there over 15 years. I left the job 8 months ago. Right now I'm doing a contractor- gig job. Do I put that as my current job on my resume? All my main skills are part of my job I did 15 years ago. Not sure if I should even mention it? I have no set schedule and I can whatever hours I want.

So the dates problem really is a HUGE problem for Military contractors. I took a job with one company to work on a Military project. That company got fired, but I was retained and given the exact same position with the exact same contract in the exact same chair doing the exact same work for the exact same people--only now I was being paid by another company. 2 years later that contract came up for bid. I changed companies again, but stayed in that same seat. 3 employers in 3 years--same job role same desk, same contract. I then moved and took a different seat in a new contract for a new company. Same story, 2 years into it, the company gets fired, another company takes over. I took a promotion in that company to go to a new location, with a new contract, only working for a subsidiary. So now I am looking at 6 years, 6 companies, but really only 2 jobs. I'm sure other contractors have the same experience, but I know Military contractors do for a fact.

Another tip I would give is to avoid the two column resume layout like the plague. It's really common on a lot of resume templates but it's just not a good layout for a resume.

Great video!! 👍🏼

How should I List Temp Labors?

I like your channel. I've got a solid Job and really not looking. However, I was like to keep my resume good to go. What about the "AI" we ways hear about and tailoring your resume to job description? Is 10 years back still the standard?

Do you have a video where you talk about the pros and cons of including a cover letter with my resume? Also, you said to not include a personal photo on the resume. But, can or should I include my personal photo on my cover letter?

Excellent--thank you!

Not sure what kind of accomplishment bullet points I can actually put down. Working retail and in the customer service industry I don't think there was really anything I could have added or changed within that job. Any advice? Or examples?

@Adam Thrussell Bryan Thank you for the information. Big M 1981 Marathon Frankston to Melbourne Town Hall

I've had 30-40 bullet points per job, before, a few years ago. lol.

I would love to see this video remade with the new technologies like Jobvite. Seems like resume scanning bots want a million words and they have to be conjegated correctly and it leads to the page being overloaded with text that sounds like a computer wrote it...

I do understand the perspective of the employer being intimidated by MASSIVE amounts of bullet points but at the same time I have tried to reduce down my bullet points to just between 3-5, highlight achievements I made in automating processes to make things easier for a team, how I mentored junior staff and acted as a point of escalation when technicians ran into issues, etc. and have on occasion been told by so called "resume experts" that I'm not putting in enough info to explain what I did for 4 years. So its damned if you do put in too many bullet points, damned if you don't. Oh and before any human eyes even look at the resume, its got to be parsed and picked by the ATS because some of those will sort which resumes to look at first.

I don't understand the difference bettween having a profile picture on linkedin but not on the resume, isn't the same thing? what's the difference

All of this makes me very suspicious about a recent interview I went through. Some of the questions asked like my hobbies seemed way too fluffy for a serious interview, and it makes me suspicious about the interviewer and whether or not I could even get the job and if my time was wasted.

Do you suggest tweaking a resume to accentuate different SKIs that more closely match an employer's requirements for each company applied to, or could that get you in trouble? (No lying, just accentuating.)

About the dates. What if I just can't remember what day I was hired and let go? Can just the specified month and year pass?