4 Tweaks You Should Never Apply to Your Resume

You’ve finally found that dream job that you’ve wanted your whole life, all you have to do now is send in your resume and hope for the best. But you don’t want to hope you’ll get it, you want it.

So what do you do?

You take a second look at your resume and realize you need to add more skills. You read over your past experiences and decide they need to be more impressive.

Before you continue, STOP!

You may think that this will get you the job but it’s only going to get you into trouble down the road. There are ways to make yourself look good without having to lie. Here are four things you should never do and how to work around them.

Don’t lie

The one thing you don’t want to do on a resume is lie about skills that you don’t have. Your resume is really a written portrayal of who you are and it’s important that everything on your resume reflects things that are true. You can play up skills that you do have and elaborate on them but never say you know how to do something when you don’t.

Don’t tweak your credentials

Tweaking your credentials is never a good idea. Your employer is hiring you based on what they see on paper. If you lie about something that was on your resume, it can always be fact checked later on. If you lied about more than one thing, once they discover one fib, they may start to question your entire resume altogether.

Don’t bend the truth

It’s important to highlight skills that you already have, not to bend the truth. Everyone has a skill set that can be applicable to any job, some more than others, and it’s all about how you portray yourself. Let them know how you used those skills in your previous jobs and how you were able to positively affect the company. Focus on moments where you went above and beyond. Be confident in yourself and your interviewer will be confident in you.

Don’t post incriminating photos

You have to remember that you have to portray yourself in a professional manner. First impressions are very important and an interviewer can make conclusions within the first 30 seconds of meeting you. Your online presence may not be a resume in itself but it does represent you and shows employers a whole other side to you. Branding yourself means having an online presence; things like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Many employers are checking your social media accounts, so don’t post anything that could hurt you later on.