‘A little Photoshop goes a long way’
Done properly, an edited picture may be able to attract good attention. A batched up job will do the exact opposite. The point, however, is neither of these points. Just in trying to make yourself look more attractive than you really are, make sure that you still look like the picture when you turn up for the interview.
Like the young lady who turned up to the interview looking nothing like the picture attached to the resume. No big deal on the looks part. But impression-wise, the interviewers were slightly more cautious when it came to things declared in the resume.
‘I’m the best resume writer of all time!’
Unless you really are, don’t say that you are. Often enough, too many candidates write things such as being an excellent team player, super problem solver, outstanding communication skills and also rate themselves amongst the stars in written and spoken languages.
The example of this one candidate comes to mind. Her ‘very good communication skills’ and ‘fluent spoken English’ was put to the test with this simple opener by the interviewers: ‘please tell us about yourself …’ She could barely describe her functions in the few jobs that she had held previously!
If she had been slightly modest and hadn’t inflated her capabilities, perhaps a little leeway could be given and she could then prove herself in other areas.
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‘Replenishing the sugar …’
On this point, I believe that the jury is still out – whether or not to include your ‘rather insignificant’ extra-curricular activities. Maybe it all depends on if the application is for your first job where you do not yet have working experience and any activity that helps add meat to your resume matters.
Often times you can spot entries such as ‘helped arrange sports meet in university’, ‘volunteered to arrange bake sale’, ‘responsible for creating filing system for office documents’, you know that kind of thing. Yeah, the really useful stuff that doesn’t add any real value to your sales pitch.
But like I said, with this particular point it’s more about the context in which it is included. Personally however, I would draw the line at ‘was in charge of collecting money to buy snacks for the department’ … unless that’s the position that you are applying for.
‘The experienced worker’
By all means, be as descriptive as you can.
The more information that you give, better the chances of you getting an interview. Provided of course that you have the relevant experience. I don’t believe in the ‘2 page rule’ where some say if the information does not fit on two pages, it’s not relevant.
Relevance is what is relevant to your application. Doesn’t matter how much space it takes up.
In most cases, resumes received by companies are vetted through by junior officers who then recommend ‘worthwhile’ resumes to their managers. Needless to say, unnecessarily wordy resumes would be paid less attention to as compared to those that take up lots of vertical space, but which points are easily identifiable.
Take the case of one unfortunate applicant who seemed to think that writing more is necessarily better. The junior officer receiving the resume had a tough time identifying relevant work experience (not to mention time taken to read through the many pages!). Eventually the resume was put aside although the candidate did indeed have the necessary working experience required for the advertised function.
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