One of the biggest misconceptions about writing a resume is trying to include everything you have ever done on a job. Newsflash: you only need to include responsibilities, accomplishments and actions that will attract the reader. So here are a few words that you can exclude from your resume:
“and performed other duties as needed”
If those words were of supreme importance to include on your resume, then by all means, you should spell out what those other duties were.
Another wonderful little catch phrase that I consistently see is:
“responsibilities include, but are not limited to”
I think that most people want to convey that they did many different tasks and their general flexibility. But you should totally concentrate on what you did that will make a difference to the person who is reading your resume, not on “but are not limited to.”
These are common resume traps that people list on their resumes to make them seem flexible, responsible, conscientious, ambitious and loaded with initiative. Instead, what happens is that the words take valuable space and the recruiter’s time.
Another resume trap is the run-on resume. Some resumes are of infinite length, or so it would seem. Other resumes have too many words all bunched up and on top of each other, creating the inevitable, difficult read. And the trouble is that if it’s a difficult read, it probably won’t get read.
The best way to avoid resume traps is to let an objective source write your resume, as long as your source is qualified. The current statistics hold that only 10% of all resumes that originate in an online application ever makes it to a live reader. Be sure to maximize your opportunity to have your resume read because with odds like that, you need to give yourself every advantage.
