Resume mistakes that are killing your job chances? Former Google Recruiter Shares 4 Red Flags and Fixes | Today’s news
A former Google recruiter shared the top “red flags” on a candidate’s resume and instead shared what they can do in a CNBC report.
Farah Sharghi, an HR and tech recruiter who has previously worked with major firms such as Google, TikTok, Uber, and The New York Times, regularly posts on social media about job hunting, interview preparation, and salary negotiation.
She said the biggest resume mistake she’s seen in her career is candidates writing for a person who already knows them — themselves.
Sharghi noted that this one mistake is “completely invisible” to job seekers, but can make their accomplishments harder to understand and their impact easier to miss.
Here’s what she tells all her clients: “Hide your name at the top of the page. If you read your resume and it looks like it could be any other candidate, you’re in trouble. It means the value of your work isn’t going to translate to the person deciding your future,” she told CNBC.
She also listed four major red flags in resumes and how they can be fixed:
Add context
The expert noted a common pattern in CVs – candidates wrote what only they knew it could mean. For example: “Performed financial analysis of operating expenses and budget trends to support strategic planning and decision-making.”
To the recruiter as an outsider, this generic line means next to nothing.
Correction by Farah Sharghi: Add a line of context before the bullet points to briefly explain what the organization does and what the candidate’s role was within it. “Provide some key context to allow the stranger to enter.”
Explain metrics
Numbers without context are as useless as no number at all. For example, “$630,000 in Q2” means nothing without a reference. “Remember your success is a number plus what it represents.”
Correction by Farah Sharghi: A number only makes sense if HR knows what it’s measuring and why it matters.
Avoid insider shortcuts
Candidates must avoid the jargon and acronyms used in their company because they mean nothing to anyone outside the team. This includes internal tool names, project codenames, and company-specific abbreviations.
Correction by Farah Sharghi: Remove anything from your resume that requires insider knowledge to understand. Effectively describe what the tool or project actually was, in a way that “someone in another company, or even better, another industry, can understand.”
Drop the adjective “skill”
Statements like “Excellent communication. Team player. Hard working. Detail oriented” carry no weight because they cannot be verified and do not say anything specific about the candidate.
Skills are things the candidate has actually done and can demonstrate, and personality traits are part of the interview.
Correction by Farah Sharghi: If you can’t prove a skill with a specific example, it’s an adjective. Cut it off.
