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Sloppiness on a resume will cost you the job

By Anthony Pennington
Diversity Institute Fellow

08.06.04

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Although journalists write for a living, they often make mistakes on their resumes that cost them an interview, editors say.

How well their resumes are crafted can make or break journalists in the job market. Sloppiness and grammatical mistakes can undo an applicant’s job prospects.

“There are not a lot of excuses for that,” Rod Richardson, managing editor of The Times in Shreveport, La., said.

Richardson and other editors, who are offering feedback to job seekers during UNITY, said they often see resumes with typographical errors, vague references and dates that make no sense.

Editors’ tips on writing an effective resume:

  • Keep it short. One page is enough.
  • Don’t waste time on fancy paper or fonts.
  • Don’t list computer programs unless the job is in layout or design.
  • Use references that establish work history and job performance.
  • Be specific on dates; don’t leave gaps.
  • Make the resume easy to understand.
  • Use spell check, and keep the resume free of grammatical errors.

 “Sometimes things don’t always jive,” Sharon Rosenhause, managing editor of the South Florida Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, said. Gaps often appear in dates, and there is no explanation of the lapse, she said. These mistake-filled resumes are often bypassed.

Richardson and Rosenhause agree that the content of a resume should be confined to one page, and it should avoid decorative type.

“I really don’t like those odd-sized large portfolio things that people put together. That’s just a pet peeve,” Richardson said, “Eight-and-half by 11 seems to work pretty well.”

 Rosenhause said, “The only thing that matters to me is the content.” Fancy type and paper don’t help to identify the experience and the potential of the person, she said.

Providing clips of stories can allow job seekers to illustrate experience and skills, but some applicants fail to include a wide enough range of stories, she said. The range is important to identify the flexibility writers have and their ability to report while the stories are an immediate way to gauge writing skills, she said.

There probably isn’t such thing as a perfect resume, but a successful resume is one that entices editors to want to talk to an applicant, Rosenhause said.

“Get me interested.”