5 signs that your resume is holding you back

5 signs that your resume is holding you back 5 signs that your resume is holding you back When youre searching for a job, elendhing is more frustrating than sending out scores of resumes for jobs you know youre qualified for but bedrngnis getting any interviews. If thats happening to you, the explanation might be your resume is holding you back in some way.Of course, in a tight job market like this one, its can be hard to know if the issue is simply the market and the amount of competition thats there, or whether your resume itself is putting you at a disadvantage. But there are flags that indicate that your resume is probably the problem. Here are five of the biggest.1. Youre applying for plenty of jobs where you match the listed qualifications, but you arent getting interviews.Most people, even the exceptionally well-qualified, dont get interviews for every job they apply for. But if youre applying for dozens of jobs a month jobs for which you truly do meet the qualifications and never hearing anything back, chances are good that your application materials are responsible. Your resume probably isnt going to get you interviews at even half the jobs you apply to. But if its not even scoring you a success rate of one in ten, that tells you that you need to revisit what youre sending out.2. You feel like youre a much more valuable worker than your resume reflects.Many peoplethink to themselves, If I could only get to an interview, theyd see what a great fit I am. But if you feel that way, your resume isnt doing its job. If youre a great employee someone with a track record of achieving at a high level in past jobs its your resumes job to show that. If its not, you need to do rewrite until your resume reflects why an employer should be excited to talk to you.A common response to this is, But the type of work I do is hard to convey on a resume. But being a valuable employee is about getting results for your employer, and theres always a way to describe that on a resume. It doesnt have to be as quantitative as increased sales by 20% or promoted twice in two years (although those are great accomplishments to include if theyre true). Instead, it might be something more like became the departments go-to source for quickly and accurately resolving billing discrepancies or built a reputation for working successfully with previously unhappy clients or resolved an inherited four-month backlog in three weeks. Whatever it was that made you excellent at your work, thats what your resume needs to convey otherwise, it wont open many doors for you.3. If you imagine the resume of someone with a similar work history but who has done mediocre work, its not that different from your own.Your resume shouldnt just list what activities you engaged in at each job, but rather should convey how well you did them. Hiring managers arent likely to be especially impressed by your job descriptions what they care about is whether you excelled in the role. If your resum e doesnt convey that you were better than that other guy who had a similar job, theres nothing to make an employer think that youre the one worth interviewing. The way you address this is by focusing your resume on what you achieved in each role and how you excelled, not just a list of duties.4. Its three or more pages.Job seekers with long resumes regularly protest that they cant possibly fit their full job history on to two pages. But highly qualified, very senior candidates regularly manage to do that (some even sticking to one page), so if you exceed two, most hiring managers will see you as someone who cant edit, doesnt understand what information is most important, and doesnt respect their time. Are you really willing to accept that outcome just so that you dont need to trim down your text?5. When you do get interviews, interviewers seem surprised by some of the information you give them during the interview.If your interviewer seems pleasantly surprised by a work achievement or other qualification that comes up in the interview, it might be something that should have been on your resume in the first place. Similarly, if your interviewer seems disappointed to learn that, say, your last job was only a few hours a week or lasted only a few months, thats a flag that your resume might need to be clearer. (You might wonder why you should be clearer about things that might get you disqualified, but otherwise you risk wasting your time interviewing for jobs where youre not a strong candidate and dont have much chance of being hired.)