The 7 Most Common Resume Mistakes (and What Recruiters Think When They See Them)
Last month, I asked fifteen recruiters to share the resumes that made them wince. Not the ones with typos or formatting disasters—those are obvious. I wanted the subtle mistakes. The ones that good candidates make without realizing they're shooting themselves in the foot.
What I learned won't surprise recruiters, but it might surprise you. The mistakes that cost people interviews aren't about what they're missing. They're about what they're including.
1. Leading With Generic Adjectives
What it looks like:
"Results-oriented professional with excellent communication skills and proven ability to succeed in fast-paced environments."
What recruiters think:
"This person has nothing specific to say."
Here's what happens when a recruiter sees this: nothing. The words wash over them like elevator music. They've read this exact sentence on forty other resumes this week.
The problem isn't that you lack results or communication skills. The problem is that adjectives are claims without evidence. And in a world where everyone claims to be results-oriented, the phrase becomes meaningless.
What works instead: specificity. Replace "excellent communication skills" with "Made 40 calls daily to potential customers, encouraging 65% to lock in same-day rates." Replace "fast-paced environment" with "processed 1,000 invoices per week." The moment you add numbers and context, the recruiter can visualize what you actually did.
The rule is simple: if you could copy-paste a phrase onto any resume in your field and it would still make sense, delete it.
2. Burying Your Impact in Job Duties
What it looks like:
"Responsible for managing social media accounts and creating content."
What recruiters think:
"So you showed up and did your job. And?"
Most resumes read like job descriptions. They tell recruiters what you were supposed to do, not what you actually accomplished. But recruiters don't care soley about your responsibilities—they care about your results too. Were you actually good at what you did?
The difference is stark. "Managed social media accounts" tells me you had a job. "Increased Instagram engagement by 34% in six months by analyzing competitor content and testing five post formats" tells me you were good at it.
This is particularly damaging for career changers and people pursuing promotions. If you list only duties, you look interchangeable with everyone else who held that title. If you list impact, you look like someone who makes things better wherever they go.
The test: read each bullet point and ask yourself, "Could someone have done this job badly and still written this sentence?" If yes, rewrite it.
3. Writing a Novel Instead of Headlines
What it looks like:
Dense paragraphs of text explaining your role, your team structure, your projects, and your thoughts about the industry.
What recruiters think:
"I don't have time for this."
Studies consistently show that recruiters don’t spend a lot of time on their first pass of a resume.
They're not reading your resume. They're scanning it. Looking for signals. Keywords. Numbers. Anything that jumps out as relevant.
When your resume is formatted as paragraph after paragraph of dense text, you're making them work too hard. And when you make a recruiter work too hard, they move to the next candidate.
This doesn't mean dumbing down your accomplishments. It means presenting them in a way that respects the reader's time. Use bullet points. Keep them to one or two lines. Lead with the outcome, then add context only if needed.
Think of each bullet point as a headline. If it doesn't grab attention in three seconds, it's not doing its job.
4. Listing Skills Without Context
What it looks like:
A skills section that reads: "Python, SQL, Tableau, Excel, Project Management, Agile, Leadership."
What recruiters think:
"Did you take one class in Python or build production systems with it?"
Skills sections have become nearly useless. Everyone lists the same tools and buzzwords, giving recruiters no way to distinguish between someone who spent three years mastering SQL and someone who completed a weekend tutorial.
The solution isn't to remove your skills section, necessarily, many recruiters will still filter for keywords in their applicant tracking systems - especailly if there are a lot of applicants. The solution is to prove your skills in your work experience.
Instead of just listing "Project Management" in your skills, write a bullet point like: "Led a team of 8 to deliver CRM implementation 3 weeks ahead of schedule, preventing $50K in potential contract penalties."
Now the recruiter knows you can actually manage projects, not just that you know the term exists.
5. Using the Same Resume for Every Application
What it looks like:
A general-purpose resume that sort of fits most jobs you're applying to.
What recruiters think:
"Did this person even read the job description?"
I know tailoring resumes sounds exhausting. You're already applying to twenty jobs a week. Who has time to customize every single resume?
But here's the reality: recruiters can tell when you've sent a generic resume. And generic resumes go to the bottom of the pile.
This doesn't mean rewriting your entire resume for each application. It means reading the job description, identifying the three to five most important requirements, and making sure those are clearly addressed in your resume.
If the job emphasizes "experience with Salesforce," make sure Salesforce appears in your work experience, not just buried in a skills list. If they want someone who can "model compensation plans," include a bullet point demonstrating that.
The goal is to make the recruiter's job easy. When they glance at your resume, they should immediately see that you match what they're looking for.
6. Leaving Obvious Gaps Unexplained
What it looks like:
Your resume jumps from "Marketing Manager, 2019-2021" to "Senior Marketing Manager, 2024-Present" with nothing in between.
What recruiters think:
"What happened? Fired? Jail? Sabbatical? Do I need to worry about this?"
Employment gaps aren't the career-killer they used to be. People take time off for family, health, education, layoffs, or simply because they can. Most recruiters understand this.
But unexplained gaps create questions. And questions create hesitation. And hesitation means they move to the next candidate.
You don't need to write a confession or explain yourself at length. A simple one-line explanation often suffices: "Career break to care for family member" or "Pursuing professional development and consulting projects."
If you were laid off along with half your company, that's not a red flag—it's a data point. "Company downsized 60% of workforce" gives context. Silence invites speculation.
The recruiters I spoke with emphasized that it's not the gap that concerns them—it's the absence of information about the gap.
7. Ignoring the Robots (ATS)
What it looks like:
A beautifully designed resume with graphics, tables, text boxes, and creative formatting that looks stunning as a PDF.
What recruiters think:
"What is this - wingdings?"
Most companies use applicant tracking systems to organize resumes. These systems scan your resume and parse data into searchable fields for recruiters. Some can rank applicants, but I still to this day have never seen or heard of one of my recruiting colleagues who trusts this or uses ranking software in the way you’d expect.
Creative formatting breaks these systems. That gorgeous two-column layout? The ATS might read it as gibberish. Those text boxes highlighting your achievements? The system can't parse them. That infographic showing your skill levels? Completely invisible to the software.
This creates a painful irony: the more effort you put into making your resume stand out visually, the less likely it is to be seen at all.
I once had someone send me their resume. When I imported it into our ATS, the formatting was all messed up. It was barely readable. Turns out there were a lot of text boxes used in a Microsoft template that made it do this.
The solution is boring but effective: stick to standard formatting. Single column. Standard fonts (no, not Comic Sans). Clear section headers. Bullet points instead of tables. Your resume should look professional, not groundbreaking.
Save the creativity for your portfolio, your cover letter, or the interview. And your best bet, build one in Google Docs or Microsoft from scratch or use a trusted template. But those templates by Microsoft or Canva, I’d avoid those at all costs.
What This All Means
The common thread through these mistakes is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a resume is for.
Your resume is not your autobiography. It's not a comprehensive list of everything you've ever done. It's not a chance to showcase your personality or your design skills.
Your resume is a qualification document. Its only job is to convince a recruiter that you're worth twenty minutes of their time on a phone screen.
That's it. That's the entire goal. At least for now.
Once you accept this, many of these mistakes become obvious. Of course, you shouldn't bury your achievements in walls of text—that makes it harder to see why you're worth calling. Of course, you should tailor your resume - you're trying to show you match their needs. Of course, you should prove your skills instead of claiming them - claims without evidence are just noise.
The best candidates I've placed over the years rarely had the most impressive backgrounds. They had the clearest resumes. They made my job easy. They showed me exactly why I should care about them in the first ten seconds.
Cole Sperry has been a recruiter and resume writer since 2015, working with tens of thousands of job seekers, and hundreds of employers. Today Cole runs a boutique advisory firm consulting with dozens of recruiting firms and is the Managing Editor at OptimCareers.com.
