It’s a new year, job seekers! Here are 5 handy-dandy, truly terrible resume tips for 2021 to minimize your potential and make sure you don’t land the interview!
By: Daniel Lorenzo | Marketing Manager for Let’s Eat, Grandma
It’s a new year and a new you. Time to get out there and NOT get a job.
Here at Let’s Eat, Grandma, we’re in touch with the savvy job avoiders of 2021. We know you have zero career goals right now and couldn’t care less if you get hired.
So, here are our best, godawful resume tips for 2021 to make sure you write a truly terrible resume that gets no offers. Follow these hints, and you’ll be seeing no interviews for a long time!
(ALERT: If you have not yet noticed, this article is completely satirical. If you have not read carefully, beware that NONE OF THESE ARE ACTUAL RESUME TIPS. If you are actually seeking a job, DO THE OPPOSITE OF THESE and go here for real resume tips.
Sorry to ruin the fun for those of you that got it, but we gotta be careful!)
5 Terrible Resume Tips for 2020
#1) Send out the same resume to every job
One-size-fits-all! Once you write your resume, the wors— I mean, best thing to do is use the same one for every company, no matter what position you are applying for.
After all, are positions really that different? You know you’re awesome, and that’s what matters. Who cares about how that comes across on a piece of paper?
If you are applying for a sales representative position as well as a sales manager position, some lesser gurus might tell you to tailor your resume to each position.
“You need to play up your leadership traits and give tangible evidence of your management traits to stay competitive for the manager position,” they’ll say (stupidly.)
But here’s the thing: that mess might take you 15, 20, even THIRTY minutes. Ain’t nobody got time for that. You want a resume that is truly garbage after all.
During that time, you could catch almost a whole episode of Stranger Things. Who cares if they are looking specifically for leaders and this position could potentially lead to $120 K/year? Remember, Netflix will always be there for you even if the dumb hiring managers aren’t.
Copy, paste, send it out to hundreds of jobs, and spend the rest of your free day relaxing. You don’t need a job anytime soon.
(Oh and by the way, make sure you’re ONLY sending these documents through job boards. 60-85% of people might get jobs through their network, but they’re all squares doing big ol’ nerd jobs.)
#2) Cram as many keywords into your resume as you can
“But, Daniel,” I can already hear you saying, “what about the ATS? I heard that you need to tailor your documents with keywords from each job. Otherwise, they might not pass through ATS to a hiring manager!”
Oh, I hear ya. Don’t get me wrong, keywords are exceptionally important. That’s why your one (1) resume should have ALL OF THEM.
If you want an absolutely awful resume in 2021, you have to go big or go home. I know you’ve heard a lot about how companies are using Applicant Tracking Systems to filter unqualified candidates.
The truth is that those ATS systems are terrifying, evil robot overlords that you need to appease with hundreds of keywords. And the only way to do that is to forcibly cram as many keywords into your resume as possible, like this:
Don’t worry about how unnatural it sounds or crowded it will look to the real person on the other end of the ATS. They might be the one making the hiring decision based on their skilled human judgment, but don’t let that reasonable thinking distract you from the B I G S C A R Y R O B O T.
Despite what virtually every single expert is saying, keywords don’t differ from job to job. Just get them all on your one generic resume to maximize your chances.
Don’t worry about where to put them either. Throwing them into one giant pile at the top of your resume will do the trick to make sure you crush your goal of never getting hired.
Sure, you could look at each job description, easily find the unique words that a recruiter would use to search for qualified candidates (like the position title, skills, and certifications), and naturally integrate those into your resume without compromising its readability.
But as we’ve already said, that’s not worth your precious minutes of time (unless you’re a total dweeb.)
#3) Find one or two words that sound fancy, then them as much as you can.
Speaking of words, don’t forget about the phrasing of your resume. Remember to find just a couple of buzzwords that sound super professional and use them all the time.
It doesn’t matter whether you know what they mean or use them in regular conversation! Business writing isn’t about being clear or concise or natural-sounding – it’s about sounding ~fancy~.
Don’t worry about varying your sentences – just one or two of these words will cover every single bullet point. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right?
Check out how canned and repetitive this real example from my piece-of-trash resume sounds:
Marvelous, no?
#4) Use an Objective Statement that says what YOU need
You probably know that everyone needs a canned, generic Objective Statement at the top of their resume instead of a robust, attention-grabbing Summary of Qualifications.
But you really don’t want a job, so you need to take that Objective to the next level. Make sure it only mentions what you’re looking for in a job; don’t bother with what the recruiter is looking for in a candidate.
Lay that sucker at the very top of your resume. It’s the first thing a recruiter notices, so it’s prime real estate to give some vague, useless information that’s not unique to your skillset.
Here are two prime, A+ examples of the kind of terrible Objective Statement you’re looking for:
OBJECTIVE
Dedicated professional seeking a challenging new work opportunity in an urban area to further develop my skills as an HR professional.
OBJECTIVE
Dedicated professional seeking a position that will pay at least $100K when I sit around and text my friends to see what they’re up to later (that would be the dream).
Isn’t that awesome? Both examples provide the same level of value to the recruiter – absolutely nothing! And that’s just what you need if you’re serious about having the worst resume possible.
#5) Get as much information on your resume as possible – at least 8 pages’ worth.
Last but not the least, the Big Kahuna, the stinkiest, most utterly god awful of our resume tips for 2021: write a resume that is as long as possible.
Conventions are shifting and experts are starting to recommend that a resume can go onto 2 pages if necessary. “About time,” we say, because for our job-hating clients who want zero interviews, we recommend at least 8 pages.
You want to put the hiring staff to sleep, right? Include every single detail from every job you’ve ever held (especially if they go all the way back to 1990.) You heard me right – writing an abhorrent resume isn’t for the faint of heart!
Don’t let an iota of detail be spared in your long, wordy descriptions of every responsibility you had at each job. From filing memos to refilling the coffee, they need to see everything that’s irrelevant and generic about your professional history.
(Oh, and don’t bother with bullet points—this will all look best in huge, unreadable blocks of text.)
There you have it! Now that you have everything you need to know to write a terrible resume in 2021 you’ll be on your way to long-term unemployment in no time.
I hope this silly, satirical article brought some fun and humor into your day! For some real, helpful resume tips for 2021, check out our archive chock full of resume-related articles here.
Wondering if your resume can compete with the best of them? Schedule a call with us to find out how our professional writers can help rework your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile to land you that dream job.
Happy job hunting!
Love,
Grandma