For months I have been contemplating how to answer this question – which is the most frequently asked question I receive.
There is hardly any simple answer but there are some logical answers:
1. Most resumes are too long. Employers are busy or think that they are busy and most just won’t take the time to read anything longer than one page. One resume I received today to review was 5-pages and more than 2,200 words long, obviously too long to get anyone to pay attention; and
2. Many resumes provide too many opportunities to reject the applicant. For example, put that you are a tennis player on your resume and already every golfer would reject you (or visa versa) and include information about your faith and the rejections will increase. I tell my clients, that most resumes are rejected because of what data they contain and not because of what data was excluded; and
3. Most resumes I see today start with an “Objective.” Frankly, the employer doesn’t really care what you want for what they want is someone that (a) will hit the ground running and (b) make the company a profit or (c) fix a problem that has been persistent.
Those individuals who write their own resumes often only do so once every 4-5 years while some Professional Resume Writers write that many every day.
Resume writers that stay in business are generally those that have proven, over the years, that their work performs.
