Your Resume Stinks, And I Haven’t Even Opened It

Robby

Hi there. I was going to try to sugar coat this message about your résumé, but there’s not much point.

Your résumé is terrible.

I know you want to get a job here in Indianapolis, and I’m sure you feel like your experience and qualifications are impressive, but I just don’t care.

Why is that? Because when I received your résumé by email, it’s titled resume.pdf.

Actually, something I commonly see from jobseekers is actually worse. I got a résumé recently that had the filename  8-1-2012.docx.

That tells me that you are not a person who pays attention to detail. And if there’s one thing that every job worth having requires, it’s attention to detail. Your résumé is something you labored for hours to produce. You’ve had it edited by friends. You’ve taken it down to the career office. You’ve sent it in to dozens of companies. You may have even paid a résumé expert to help you write the content.

But if you name the file something stupid like fred.doc that tells me that you are not someone who has the natural inclination to notice the little things.

Now, I admit that I’m making a snap judgement. But the economy is tough and if I’m looking at one résumé, I’m looking at fifty résumés a day. So yours had better have a file name that makes me want to open it.

What should that be? Here’s an easy example: Resume for Fred Johnson, Sales Manager - August 2012.pdf.

That’s a file I want to open.

Tags: cv, filename, résumé