In a day and age where we are frequently signing our name to an untold volume of physical and especially, electronic, documents it has become easy to forget how powerful the message and value signing, or placing , our name to any document is, especially online resumes.
When my kids were in school, they would ask me to check out an assignment they had completed, and the question I always asked was, “Is the quality of this report worthy of putting your name to it”, needless to say reports were frequently modified after they applied this standard to them. Same was true for tests and anything else where signing your name sends the message; This is my best work and worthy of me putting my name on it.
Before I continue, I want to make clear using the Indeed resume template as your primary form of promoting your brand is NEVER a good idea. Having said that and seeing the proliferation of Indeed generated resumes on their site, I thought it would be helpful to review what should be avoided if you plan to use this format.
One of the things we see as professional recruiters is the lack of effort and thought job seekers put into their Indeed resumes, resumes they endorse by putting their names to it. These are some of the frequent resume fails we see from jobseekers as we search various online resume databases:
- Incomplete descriptions of their roles at past employers
- Timelines that either have huge gaps or identical start and end dates for multiple jobs
- Grammatical and spelling errors which should be easily fixed by the spellcheck function of the resume website or Google
While there are others, these are the top three, all of which are endorsed every time you post a resume in that format with YOUR name on it. As this is the first impression you are making on a prospective employer, resumes with the above fails pretty much guarantee it will also be the last impression as recruiters will move on to the resume.
So, remember the next time your about to put your name on something, especially something like a resume that is broadcasting your brand, take the time to look at it through the eyes of your target audience and ask yourself, What does this resume say about the person looking for my attention and the opportunity to work for me? Trust me, the answer will be obvious, the fix will be easy, and those efforts will show in the results that polished resume generate.
