Things That Should Not Be on Your Resume

Your resume should be customized each time you apply for a job, to emphasize the specific skills and experience and strengths that make you a strong match for that job’s requirements. Information that is unrelated to the position should be minimal, so the reader can easily find the relevant info. Here are some other things that should not be on your resume, whatever position you are applying for at the moment:

•     Street address: For your location, city and state are sufficient.

•     An unprofessional email address, or your current work email address: It is best to use an email address on your resume that would not raise an eyebrow or make the reader question your judgment. Using your current work email account on the resume may make the reader suspect that you are job hunting while on the clock for your current employer.

•     An objective: Objectives are out-of-date; a tailored summary including keywords from the job description, and that focuses on the information that is most of interest to the employer, is recommended.

•     “I”, “me”, or “my” : There are no personal pronouns on the resume, and so, no full sentences.

•     Images (including a picture of yourself), graphics, icons, emojis, graphs, charts, tables: These are inappropriate and/or unnecessary for a resume in the US, and/or they may interfere with an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) “choosing” your resume to be seen by a human being.

•     Columns, shaded background (of any portion of the page), boxes around text: These may also interfere with tracking software adding your information accurately in the employer's applicant database.  

•     “References available upon request”: This is understood, and does not have to be stated on the resume.

•     Hard to read text (busy design and/or very small font size): You want your resume to be easy to read.

•     Very small margins: Small margins can also make your resume hard to read, and if an employer prints your resume, information may get cut off if it is too close to the edge of the page.

•     Personal information including age/date of birth, marital status, the fact that you have children/number of children, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, info about your health and/or disabilities, height, weight (all this goes for the cover letter too): this information should not be taken into account with regard to hiring (and some groups have legal protection from hiring discrimination too). Your Social Security number also should not be on your resume.

•     Info re: jobs you had more than around 15 years ago: The reader is most interested in what you’ve done that is related to the job they are trying to fill, and info that is recent (within roughly the last 10-15 years). It can hurt more than it will help, to include information from the more distant past on the resume.

•     High school info (if you attended college for any period of time).

•     Dates in the Education section, if your education info is from more than five years ago – you must have dates in the Experience section, though.

•     GPA: Hiring decisions are not made based on grades. (If you are preparing your resume for a college or graduate school application or for an academic internship or program, rather than for a job, then grades should be included.)

•     Explanations – of a gap in employment, why you left a certain position, why you are applying for a job in a different geographical area, etc. The resume is “just the facts”. Save any explanation(s) for the cover letter and/or interview.  

•     Name(s)/contact info for supervisor(s)/References: Your references should be on a separate document, which you should prepare and provide only when it is requested.  

•     Hobbies or interests (unless they are related in some way to the job you are applying for).

•     ANYTHING THAT IS UNTRUE OR MISLEADING: Employers do not want dishonest employees. This includes adding information that is false, and leaving off information with the intent to deceive.

•     Resume elements that are not needed/not helpful, including: any color text other than black, fancy bullet points, lots of different fonts, and frequent italics, bold, and underlining.

When preparing your resume for application for a specific job, ask yourself about each piece of info or design element, “Based on the job description, will including this help me to get an interview?”. This can help to clarify what you should leave in and/or maybe add more detail about, and what you should remove from that version of your resume.

Good luck!