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Worst Resume of the Week

I received a resume today that was so bad, I need write about it.  The resume is from a federal employee with more than 30 years in various supervisory and management positions within government.  The resume is almost a guide for what not to do.  Here are the basics:

  • 6 Pages – the resume is six pages long, written in paragraph form.  There’s no way I’m going to read all of this. 
  • 808 words – the first job listed has a description that covers one and half pages – a full 808 words.  This is longer than most resumes – I had to check this and pulled 10 other resumes at random and found they had an average of 668 words, with only four of them having more than 808 words. 
  • No accomplishments – I read the first page of the resume doesn’t have a single accomplishment on it (I stopped reading there). 
  • Acronyms – There are so many government acronyms in the resume, I honestly have no idea what this person did.
  • Hours per week – The job seeker listed for each job that it was a 40 hr/wk job and that the role was as a permanent employee.  This isn’t important information. 
  • Nine Digit Zip – The job seeker provided the full address for each position they held, along the nine digit zip code.  This is overkill.
  • Continuing Education – The job seeker lists EVERY class, seminar and lecture they have been to in their 30+ year career. Continuing education should be included on your resume.   But listing everything is overkill.  I really don’t need to know that this job seeker received one hour of EEO training in 1985, or two hours of safety training in 1976. 

Although I could continue giving examples of problems with this resume, the bottom line is that it fails.  Despite the overwhelming amount of detail, I don’t understand what this individual has done or what they are qualified for.  There is also nothing that indicates to me what this job seeker is seeking.  Without the answer to these questions, it’s impossible to make a connection to an opportunity.  I’m left with two options:  click delete or take a lot of time interviewing the job seeker to answer these questions.