Writing a resume is more difficult than you think. It doesn’t give a good impression to make mistakes in your resume, but it’s easily done. If it is your first resume or your 10th – always be critical and check by other people. We give you the most common mistakes. And most important of all, how can you avoid those mistakes.

Top 10 Mistakes

1. Typos and grammatical errors
   Your resume should be grammatically perfect. If it’s not, employers would draw a conclusion about you. For example: this person clearly doesn’t take this application seriously. Probably you do not recognize the mistakes, because you saw your resume too many times. Always let your resume checked by other people, they can see different typos and errors when you read over it.
2. Lack of specifics
   Do not forget to include details. Employers need to understand what you’ve done in your previous job. For example:
   1. Coached juniors in their tennis program. Or:
   2. Performance and mental coach of juniors High School Tennis in their program to reach the WTA-tournament finals.
      Example B gives the employer a better picture than example A. Example A is too general, and the employer won’t fully understand what you’ve done.
3. General resume
   Never send a general resume to all employers. Try to write a resume specifically for each employer you are applying to. They expect you to show you want to work in this position specifically. You should show in your resume that you did your homework. You should know what the organization and the position is about and should show why you want to work there.
4. Highlighting duties instead of accomplishments
   Don’t list just your job duties, because employers don’t really want to see that. They are more interested in what you’ve accomplished while you did those duties. See the following example.
   1. The duty: Did administration work for the Tennis Academy.
   2. The accomplishment: Reorganized and updated the paper files of the members of the Tennis Academy and made a database for it on the computer. Also made it accessible for all coaches
5. Resume length
   There are no rules for the usual resume length. How long it should be, that’s personal. It’s important to not cut things too short and going on too long. You need to think by yourself what is most important and what should I eliminate. If you are applying for head tennis coach, your side job as newspaper-man is not that important as it was for your first ‘real’ job. Mostly a resume has one or two pages.
6. A vague objective
   Employers need a specific goal. Don’t be too general. If you are specific, employers can focus on their needs as well as yours and see if it’s a match. Don’t give this objective: ‘I’m searching for a challenging position that offers professional growth’. But be more specific: I’m searching for a coaching position that allows me to grow in my experience and skills with adult tennis.
7. No action verbs
   Try to avoid phrases with ‘responsible for’. It’s better to use action verbs because that will describe your responsibilities better.
   Example:
   1. Responsible for weekend and holidays tennis camps.
   2. Organized and planned weekend and holiday tennis camps.
8. Leaving off important information
   Always look over the application: is there anything they asked for what isn’t in your resume? If they ask for particular skills, show them in your resume. Or if you don’t have them, why don’t you have them and how are you going to solve that? If you are applying for your first job, it’s important to show what side job you did. It might seem unnecessary, but soft skills as work ethic can be really important.
9. Visually too busy
   Be sure you have one font and size, that makes it easier to read. Make different subjects and not just one piece of text. You can show it to several people and if they also think it visually attractive, the employer probably thinks the same.
10. Incorrect contact information
    It sounds obvious, but it happens often. Because of the fast typing, you can turn around 89 in 98. But do also check if your reference information is up to date, maybe they changed numbers or moved without letting you know. Always double-check!

The important message

Perhaps you’ve noticed some points are nearly the same. That is because you can look in different ways at sentences. Try to remember to be specific and clear; point out what you did and made. And maybe the most important of all: always double-check with others.