17 resume mistakes, and the fix for each

Ordered by how much damage each one actually does, which is not the order these usually get listed in.

1. Duties instead of results

The one that costs the most, and the most common.

Responsible for managing the company's social media presence.

The reader learned nothing they could not guess from your job title.

Fix: what changed, by how much.

Grew Instagram from 4k to 31k in 14 months by moving to short-form video; became the second-largest source of trial signups.

Every bullet should survive the question so what? If it does not, cut it or add the outcome. There is a method for this in resume action verbs.

2. No numbers anywhere

A resume with no figures is a set of claims. One with figures is a record.

Fix: volume, money, time, people, or percentage change. Confidential? Give the shape — "a seven-figure budget", "a team of eleven", "roughly a third".

3. A typo in the contact block

A typo in a bullet is survivable. A typo in your email or phone number means the company cannot reach you and never finds out why you did not respond.

Fix: send yourself an email at the address on the resume, and call the number. Ninety seconds.

4. The wrong company name

From tailoring the last application. It happens constantly and it is close to fatal — it says you are sending volume and did not read.

Fix: search the document for the previous employer's name before every send.

5. A summary made of adjectives

Motivated, detail-oriented team player with a proven track record.

Describes nobody, so it distinguishes you from nobody, and it sits at the most valuable point on the page.

Fix: three lines with a field, a scale and one piece of evidence. Examples in professional summary examples.

6. Inconsistent dates

Jan 2018 - Mar 2021 in one entry and 2021-Present in the next. It looks careless, and it makes total experience harder for both a person and a parser to compute.

Fix: one format everywhere. 2021 - Present is enough unless months matter.

7. Skill rating dots

Four stars out of five at Excel is unverifiable, and it invites a question you cannot answer well. What is three-out-of-five SQL?

Fix: name the tools. Show the level through what you did with them. No template on this site rates your skills, deliberately.

8. Text inside an image

Your name as a logo, a skills chart, a headshot with your title baked in. A parser sees an image and moves on. If your name is only in the image, you are a nameless record.

Fix: never put words in a graphic. Paste your PDF as plain text — if your name is not there, that is why.

9. Contact details only in the header

Many parsers skip document headers and footers entirely.

Fix: contact details in the body of the page. Every template here already does this.

10. A two-column layout for a portal application

A sidebar next to job history can be read across rather than down, interleaving your skills into your employers. See how ATS works for what that looks like.

Fix: single column for portals. Keep a designed version for humans — switching template keeps your content.

11. A second page of padding

Skills lists, hobbies, "references available on request". That is a one-page resume with a formatting problem.

Fix: cut to one page, or fill the second with quantified work. See how long should a resume be.

12. Nine-point type and no margins

Solving a length problem by shrinking. It reads as trying to hide the length rather than fix it.

Fix: cut two words from three bullets. "Successfully", "responsible for", "helped to" and "various" usually get you there.

13. An unexplained gap

Silence invites the worst assumption available.

Fix: one line, factual. "Career break — full-time caring, 2023-2025." "Redundancy and search, 2024." Nobody minds a stated reason; everybody notices an unstated one.

14. Every skill you have ever touched

Thirty items in one list forces the reader to guess what you are actually good at, and every entry is an interview question.

Fix: three or four groups, five or six items each, strongest first, and nothing you would not want to be tested on.

15. A file named resume-final-v3.pdf

That filename is what sits in a recruiter's inbox next to forty others.

Fix: firstname-lastname-resume.pdf.

16. Sending a Word document with tracked changes or comments

It happens more than you would think, and the comments are sometimes about the employer.

Fix: send PDF. Accept all changes and remove comments first if you drafted in Word.

17. An objective statement

Seeking a challenging position in a dynamic organisation where I can grow.

It describes what you want, before the reader has decided to care.

Fix: delete it, or replace it with a summary about what you bring.

The five-minute pre-send check

1. Email and phone are correct — test them.
2. No previous employer's name anywhere it should not be.
3. Dates consistent, no unintended gaps or overlaps.
4. Every bullet survives so what?
5. Copy the PDF, paste as plain text, read the order.
6. File named firstname-lastname-resume.pdf.

Five minutes, and it catches everything on this list except the writing itself.