Resume Thoughts

Lately at work, my coworkers and I have been looking over some resumes for a new hire. There were certain things that I was surprised to see... (and also surprised not to see) that I think people could learn from. It was nice for once to have the perspective of the scrutinizing future-colleague rather than attempting to critique my own or a friend's resume. Obviously not every person who looks over resumes of potential hires will notice the same things, but nonetheless I think it is an interesting and helpful exercise to point out some of my thoughts as I was reading through. Some of these things are kind of harsh, but it is the honest truth of what I was thinking, so better to know than be totally ignorant of what message you may be sending to potential employers. I would think that some of this might be obvious, but I guess not since people are submitting resumes with these issues...

• If you are only a few years out of college (let's say, 5 years or less) and choose not to put your GPA on your resume, my assumption is that you left it off because it's not very good.
• Don't have much related work experience? Then you should list the coursework you've taken within the field and add information to a section on "Experience" with any kind of technical skills you gained during that coursework (field labs, experiments, senior projects, etc). Put the most relevant courses for the specific job first in the list.
• When there are grammatical or punctuation errors in your resume, I'm assuming that you have that same lack of attention to detail in your other work. So you have bullets detailing some experience -- well, don't end the third bullet with a period and none of the others with one. It just looks sloppy and unedited.
• The all too frequently underutilized "Objective" section: If you have one, don't make it lame. Most of the ones I've read basically say in a few more words, "I would like a job, thanks." Well, we already know that because you've sent us your resume. Either make it meaningful or leave it out. Also, don't make your objective basically state "I'd like a job so that I can get other better jobs in the future." Especially for employers that are worried about employees only staying for a few years, this is only hurting you.
• If you're submitting a writing sample, choose an example for which your name is not the fifth author listed. Preferably, choose something for which you are the only author. Otherwise, it's very hard to know whether I am reviewing the candidate's writing or someone else's.
• Put the most important stuff first. Seeing a bunch of detail about some unrelated job or volunteer work before the important stuff could mean that I don't keep reading the details of the other stuff you actually want read.