"Acronyms that are company-specific need to be reworked into a generic description of the same type that is easily understandable to those outside of that environment," advised Melissa Holmes, senior technical recruiter, at Levi, Ray & Shoup Consulting Services, Springfield, IL.

13. Resume language is replete with "fluff," flowery words, and "resume speak" instead of specifics.
Your resume "needs to have good factual information and be clear as to what it is that you actually do; it doesn't need to be fluffy and overwrought," said survey respondent Thomas Burrell. Meg Steele, director of recruitment and employment mobility at Swedish Medical Center in the Seattle area, decried the lack of specifics in resume language: "The most irritating characteristic on senior-level resumes is an overuse of flowery language without substantiation," she said. "I want to see actual accomplishments, not summary statements that imply an understanding of functional areas that reported up to the individual. A good leader knows enough about what his or her people are doing to speak intelligently about the problem that was being solved by this or that initiative. So, if [candidates] say 'oversaw development of strategic solutions,' they should have some more specific examples of said 'strategic solutions' and what the impact was to the business [and] the employees." Agreed survey respondent Alison: "Weed out the garbage and tell me what you made, saved, achieved and make it quantifiable.

Characterized as "resume speak" by survey respondents were words like "visionary," "thought leader," "evangelist," "innovative," "motivating," "engaging."

14. Resume language is egotistical and self-congratulatory.
Harlynn Goolsby of the Human Resources Department at OSRAM Sylvania compares this type of resume verbiage to a "bio or the introduction for a guest speaker."

Some examples of puffed-up phrases include "inspirational leader," "as quoted in …," and "winner of countless awards."

15. Content focuses on soft skills and neglects hard data.
Seeing soft skills listed on a resume is a rock-bottom priority for hiring decision-makers, who prefer to explore soft skills in the interview stage (and by talking to your references) because it is difficult to substantiate them on paper. "If you have to tell me you have these skills, you probably don't have them," said Kristina Creed, a senior manager at a for-profit education provider. Limit use of soft skills -- such as communication, teamwork, and leadership -- to those that are germane to the position you're targeting. Portrayal of soft skills will be more credible if you substantiate them with solid examples of how you've demonstrated them. If hard skills are required, be sure to include them, too, and be very specific about them -- types of projects, technical skills, and expertise.

Soft skills are also helpful if you are in a profession in which hard skills predominate, and soft skills are unexpected but desirable. "If you're a software engineering manager who has a real talent with people and is technically excellent -- highlight it," suggested Veronica Richmond a human resources in professional Oakville, Ontario, Canada. "You're a rarity, so have great stories ready to back it up."

16. Span of work experience in a given job is listed with years only instead of with months and years or is listed inconsistently from job to job.
Decision-makers want to see specific dates of employment -- months and years (not days). "A job that ran December, 2004 to January, 2005, if months are not listed, looks precisely the same as a job that ran January, 2004, to December, 2005 -- a significant difference," noted senior IT recruiter John Kennedy. Similarly, De Benedittis noted, "if your resume says 2004-2005 that could be a 30-day job or a 12-month job. I don't want to guess and neither does my client. Put a month and a year on your resume, even if it is short term; we won't be fooled because we will ask you the exact dates and we will verify the information."

17. Not enough description of the scope of a given job is provided beyond the job's title.
Some candidates assume their title will tell the full story, but titles often have different meanings from organization to organization. You must convey a sense of what the scope of each position encompassed.

18. Candidate leaves jobs off the resume.
While this peeve is not universal, many decision-makers want to see the candidate's entire job history from college graduation on. They suggest a bare-bones (position/title, employer, city/state, dates) listing of older jobs under a heading such as "Prior Experience" or "Previous Professional Experience."

Decision-makers expect you to account for all gaps between jobs. "Give it to me as straight as possible," Seattle recruiter Alice Hanson said. "If you have been out of work for a year, put a bullet in that explains why. If you have multiple jobs that ended after three months, tell me you completed three three-month contract positions successfully." Most in hiring positions want to see when you graduated college and discount the age-discrimination argument because your graduation date will be discovered anyway when the recruiting firm is verifying information. "If a company is going to discriminate, truncating the resume may get you in a door, but won't get the person the job if they are going to discriminate," Kennedy said.

19. Disproportionate space is devoted to older jobs.
Decision-makers expect to see the greatest proportion of content dedicated to your most recent and most relevant positions. They find it odd if you've devoted much more attention to an older job than one that was more recent. "Unless it was an amazing accomplishment, I'm not concerned that you grew sales by 20 percent back in 1987," said Brian Howell, CSAM, of The QWorks Group.

20. The exact same verbiage is used to describe functions in different jobs.
You may very well have had the same functions in multiple jobs, but you don't add to the value of your resume if you express these functions the same way for each job. It's not even necessary to list them for each job; once you've listed that function, the reader knows you have the experience. One job-seeker repeated the bullet point below for every job -- changing only the number of staff supervised in each position:

• Managed 32 subordinate staff from different Asian ethnic groups on recruitment, personnel, training issues.

Move on to the next 10... Executive Resume Pet Peeves 21-30 in Part 3.

Questions about some of the terminology used in this article? Get more information (definitions and links) on key college, career, and job-search terms by going to our Job-Seeker's Glossary of Job-Hunting Terms.

Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., creative director and associate publisher of Quintessential Careers, is an educator, author, and blogger who provides content for Quintessential Careers, edits QuintZine, an electronic newsletter for jobseekers, and blogs about storytelling in the job search at A Storied Career. Katharine, who earned her PhD in organizational behavior from Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, OH, is author of Dynamic Cover Letters for New Graduates and A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market (both published by Ten Speed Press), as well as Top Notch Executive Resumes (Career Press); and with Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., Dynamic Cover Letters, Write Your Way to a Higher GPA (Ten Speed), and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Study Skills (Alpha). Visit her personal Website or reach her by e-mail at kathy(at)quintcareers.com.

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