4 More Common English Resume Mistakes

In our last post, we discussed five common English resume mistakes that we often see our clients make. This is a continuation post from our previous post on common resume mistakes. We see a lot of the same mistakes among our clients and when scanning applications we receive for open positions. Many times these are mistakes that can be easily corrected with some very basic knowledge.

In this post, we explain four more mistakes you should avoid on your English resume.  

English resumes should not include a photo. While including photos on resumes is common in Japan, South Korea, and some European countries, in most English-speaking countries this should be avoided. The premise is that the people reviewing your resume should not be evaluating you based on your appearance. Making a decision based on an applicant’s appearance is considered discrimination.

Moreover, if you include a photo on your resume, it will appear to recruiters or hiring managers that you are not familiar with English resume norms or English work culture. This can have a negative impact on your application and lead recruiters to disqualify your application. Whenever we work with a client who has included a personal photo on their resume, we advise them to remove it immediately.

Building on the point above, another common English resume mistake that we see clients do is including information that is too personal. This could be information such as age, marital status, or gender identity. Just as potential employers should not evaluate applicants based on their appearance, they also should not evaluate applicants based on any personal characteristics. This would also be considered discrimination.

While in some rare and specific circumstances, it may be beneficial to include some personal information strategically, we would say that 99% of the time, you should leave off this information.

Another common resume mistake that we see is listing irrelevant skills or skills that really should not be included. Some of these include listing irrelevant language skills and computer skills.

You want to strategically mention your language skills. If a job does not ask for a language, we often recommend not listing it unless the company has some specific connection to that market. If a company is looking for an English-speaking content manager, your Japanese or Farsi skills are irrelevant 99% of the time. This is just taking up space on your resume.

You should not list skills like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or similar software skills. These are basic tech skills that every employee in 2024 will be expected to be able to use. Unless a job asks for something like “Advanced Excel skills” or “Ability to design professional PowerPoints with advanced knowledge,” we recommend leaving these off your resume.

Throughout our website contents and videos, we emphasize the importance of “tailoring” your resume to each job that you apply to. This means you should customize your resume every time you submit it. We often see our clients send out the same resume to every job they apply to. This is a problem because every job post is unique and requires something different. Every part of your resume should be tailored to the job you are applying to. You do not need to rewrite your entire resume for each job that you send out, but you do need to be conscious of what a job is asking for.

This post and the previous one have provided you with nine mistakes to avoid when writing English resumes. Avoiding these nine mistakes won’t make your resume perfect, but they are a good start. Please check out our resources page for more help writing English resumes.