Home | 5 things to not include on your resume

5 things to not include on your resume

Years ago, hiring managers had the habit of demanding every bit of information on a candidate's resume. In those days, resumes used to include information such as the applicant’s hobbies, personal identification, headshot, age, marital status, number of children, etc. There’s a big gap between resumes then and today. Today, resumes only need to mention the details relevant to the job listing.

Since space is very valuable on your resume, you should take care not to clutter it with any irrelevant elements. Here are five things that do not belong on your resume:

Long and dull sentences

Recruiters certainly don’t want to read long, Yoda-like sentences. Did you know that passive language takes up more resume space than active sentences? Replace your passive-voice phrases with active-voice ones and notice the difference. For example, “responsible for generating marketing strategies for the product department” sounds less impressive than “generated the product department’s marketing strategies.” The second sentence is even shorter. Also, write about your achievements, not the job description. Adding laundry lists of job duties is one of the worst resume mistakes that candidates make.

Weird resume designs

Resumes are supposed to be clean, simple documents. If you insist on using a pre-made MS Word resume template, your resume will end up looking bulky. Create your own resume template to suit your unique needs. Focus on using simple formatting to highlight section headers and bullet points. Struggling to design a stunning resume? Get the help of a professional resume writer.

Your age

There is no need for you to mention your age on a resume. Hiring managers often prefer young workers with fresh perspectives when they want to fill a position. You can easily be subject to age discrimination if you don’t age-proof your resume. Remove the following things from your resume immediately to avoid being discriminated against:

Work experience older than 10 years
Date of birth or age
Education, training, certifications, or licensures older than ten years

Unprofessional email address

Although your friends would have a good laugh over your email address, which reads [email protected], a hiring manager most likely would not. Listing an unprofessional email address at the top will lower the value of your entire resume. It will give the wrong first impression of you to the hiring manager. Create a professional email address for yourself using your first and last names. If the names are not available, try a combination of your name with initials, your middle name, or your area code. Remember to never use your work email for job applications.

Unnecessary info about your college life

We always talk about the importance of a well-written education section in your resume. You must emphasize a little about your college degree when you lack experience on the job. However, there is certain information that will not be useful for a hiring manager. You must mention the formal title of your degree, the college name, and location, your GPA (If it’s over 3.5), study abroad trips, and scholarships and awards reserved for the top 10%. Here are some details that you need to take off of your resume’s education section: