10 Things You Should Leave Off of Your Resume

What you include on your resume will either get the hiring manager to decide that you are a viable candidate that deserves an interview, or one that is not worth even taking the time to finish reading your resume. While there are many important things that you should include on your resume, there are several that you should leave off of your resume.

1. Irrelevant Work Experience

You may have been the most amazing hot dog cart employee when you were working your way through school, but if you are applying for a position other than hot dog cart employee, this information can be eliminated from your past work experience. According to resume writing experts at SolidEssay.com, you want to make sure that your work experience is meaningful and relevant for the position that you are applying for otherwise it is just taking up space.

2. Personal Information

Personal information included on a resume is a bad idea for a few reasons: including items such as social status, religious preference, social security number, or marital status. First of all, it is now illegal for the employer to ask this information. A second reason that you should leave these items off of your resume is because biased hiring managers could use this information to decide you are not a viable candidate for this position. Lastly, some of this information could be used for identity theft and there is no guarantee that your resume will be protected, as personally identifiable information should be.

3. Irrelevant Hobbies

Unless your hobbies are relevant to the job that you are applying for, hiring managers are not interested in the fact that you can macromere if you are applying for an IT position. These items serve no purpose on your resume and will most likely ensure your resume winds up in the trash.

4. Your Age

Although age discrimination is illegal, that doesn’t prevent it from happening. Including your age or date of birth just makes age discrimination possible for potential employers. You will not know that this was the reason you were not considered for employment and you will have no recourse.

5. References

Employers will want to speak to your references at some point in the hiring process, your potential new employer will request this information at a later date, and it is unnecessary to include this information on your resume. If you do your potential new employer may think you do not understand how the hiring process works and this may cause your resume to wind up in the trash.

6. An Unprofessional E-mail Account

If your college email account was beerbellybud(at)fratrow.com, you should not use this email account as a part of your contact information on your resume. This gives potential employers the impression that you are unprofessional or insincere about your interest in the company you have applied for. Since most email accounts are free, you should create a new, more professional sounding email account for use on your resume.

7. Your Current Place of Employment as Contact Information

Including your current employment phone number and email as a place to reach you at is a bad idea. Your current employer most likely has the right to monitor your telephone calls and email traffic, so you could put yourself in jeopardy of losing your current job. Secondly, how will you handle excusing yourself from a business meeting to take a phone call from a potentially new employer?

8. Unprofessional Social Contact URLs

While it is highly encouraged to include professional social contact URLs, such as LinkedIn, exclude URLs to social contact pages such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, or any personal blog pages you have. These pages may contain less than favorable content and keep you out of the running for a position that you are qualified for.

9. Salary Information

Do not include your current salary, or past salary information. While salary negotiation will need to take place at some point in the hiring process, prior to receiving an interview is not the right place. Including salary information on your resume may send the wrong message to the potential employer.

10. Justification for Leaving your Past Employment

Trying to justify the reason you left your past place of employment will not improve your chances of landing a position, the reason you left is irrelevant as it relates to your resume. If the employer reviewing your resume would like to know the reason that you are no longer at your previous place of employment, let them ask you during the interview process.

While there are many things that you absolutely should include on your resume, there are just as many things that you should leave off. While this is not a complete, comprehensive list of what those items are, these are some big no-nos and could land your resume in the trash just as fast as leaving off your contact information.

Author bio: Ben is an academic writing expert working for various online businesses. He provides essay writing guides which are very popular among college students. One of his recent guides is on how to write an essay in Harvard style.