You have been passed over for the last time or you see your company creeping into the 21st century without a dynamic business model for the new economy. So you get out your thesaurus to get some strong buzzwords and start clicking away at your computer. Only you find that you do not know where to start. Is that statement too over confident or is it weak? Should I add that I am bilingual or that I attended Comdex as a speaker? If so, where should I put them? Your resume is not just a matter of typing it in and putting it on good paper. It has to tell your career story. The most frequent faux pas are only due to a lack of understanding of what the employer is seeking. We can lay out the most common mistakes that human resource professionals and recruiters find.

Style Format - If you are you using a template format in word or the same old format you used out of college, it is now very passé. The "Education" now moves to the bottom and your objective "To obtain a position that will utilize my …" is altogether removed and replace with a strong Career Summary. The simple layout and huge font was when the goal was to fill the page. Now will not only fill the page but are also creating your new marketing piece, which will include a layout that will impress them and your background strongly expressed.

Let me tell you about . . . - Too Much Information! Your resume is four pages long and you just can't take anything out. You must! One page is most preferred unless you have extensive experience or are an engineer, programmer, upper level executive or officer level position. A CV (Curriculum Vitae), common with doctors, is the type of document that is meant to be very long and verbose but with a resume, one or two pages is the limit in most cases.

Too Many Jobs - All less than a year - In looking at your experience you find you have changed jobs every year or two and you want to take the dates off. You can't do it like that. The idea should be not to just take off the dates but to structure your resume in a format that distracts from the dates. Maybe a functional format that highlights your experience by function, for example: Management, Sales and Marketing, etc.

oBviouS ErrOrs - In writing a resume it is hard to make sure there are no mistakes but it is very important that you do not have any mistakes on your resume. A mistake comes across to the employer as sloppy or lack of attention to detail. Read and reread your resume and have others look at it. You know what it is supposed to say so you don't notice the mistakes as much. Give it to your most analytical or critical friend, we all have one, and let them go over it without bias.

Oh for your information, I am married - It happens all the time with all levels up to the CEOs. People put that they are married with three children and other personal information. They add as a hobby they like to spend time with their children and wife. Although a wonderful thing, it is not appropriate for your resume. The first problem with that is that it allows discrimination by the employer. Maybe they want a young and fun team that will travel extensively and if you are married with children they think you would not be. Maybe that would be the case but you do not want to give them any information with which to judge you outside of your work history. Keep your personal information out of the resume. This is your marketing piece. You are selling a product (YOU) and need to include only what is important to close the sale.

Listing your job description - Not a good mistake to make. If you are just putting the job title and company and dates and listing your responsibilities, how do you expect to win? Anyone can do the tasks hired to do. How did you do them above that of your peers? You didn't have to be the best in everything, just be sure to highlight what you were good at. Back to selling - instead of "Responsible for selling X" why not say "Established key contacts and sold X throughout the northeast Virginia area, increasing profitability for the company by 13%".

Clipart, green font, purple resume paper - Oh my! - These things will not help you to get noticed in a positive way. Certainly advertising people are the exception - you are sometimes expected to think of creative ways to spruce up the old resume. Not most of us! They are usually annoying to the hiring manager and thrown by the wayside. Again think of your marketing package - what do you want to sell? Your professionalism and what you can bring to the company. That will certainly not come through to the employer with a clip art picture.

I want to go into marketing, finance and sales. - Too many directions and lack of focus. Let's suppose that you have done it all and now have decided that you like marketing the best. Then focus your resume on Marketing. Play on the things that you have done involving marketing and stress less the financial or procurement experience. Within the finance job you still probably worked with clients, focus on that part of the job. That is still necessary with marketing. Think back to the personal marketing package. Sell it the way you want to come across.

Now you have completed your first crash course in resume writing. Hopefully, you read through your resume and it does not suffer any of the aforementioned faux pas. If not, this should help you to avoid your resume becoming the recruiter's next piece of paper to be crumbled into a game of wastepaper basketball. So now use your knowledge to get started.