I was just reading Ignore These 10 Outdated Pieces of Career Advice, and I reckoned that the author is overstating the outdatedness of some of the items. Snippets of the list, and my comments below:
5. Include an objective at the top of your resume. Let’s ring the death knell for resume objectives. Hiring managers just don’t care about them; they care about what you can do for them. Objectives never help, and can often hurt—if they aren’t tailored enough to the position or even have nothing to do with it (which makes it look like you’re blasting your resume out without enough of a focus). Most objectives, though, simply waste space. The trend now is to include highlights or a skills summary where objective used to go.
I’m not a hiring manager, but I do review resumes. We get plenty of people with adequate skills, but if they can’t show that they’re interested in our kind of work, they’re going to be put behind the people who can. Plus, if you’re really interested in Job A, and you’re applying for Job X, we’re both better off knowing that up front. Sure, if you’re throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks, keep it generic, but admit to yourself that such an approach is suboptimal.
Keep in mind here that people other than hiring managers might looks at your resume. And keep in mind that having a good objective is going to help you when your resume is being reviewed by someone who cares (and I think a lot of people do care).
6. Invest in good resume paper. Don’t invest in any resume paper. You should be submitting your resume electronically. The days of buying heavy stock to print resumes are over.
If you are, by chance, still going to career fairs, (e.g. because you’re in college), I suggest still spending a few dollars on resume paper. To me, nothing says “slacker” like showing up with resume copies fresh from the nearest computer lab printer.
8. When your interviewer asks about your weaknesses, offer up a positive framed as a weakness. This has become such an interview cliché that your interviewer will assume you’re being disingenuous. Interviewers have heard hundreds of people claim they’re perfectionists or that they work too hard; try something new.
I don’t know about this so much, but my reaction is that if an interviewer is going to ask this, they are expecting the cliched response. Or maybe I’m reading this wrong. Maybe the right way to go is with “I can’t do X, but I’m sure I can learn quickly because I can do Y and they are similar.” I think I agree that something like “perfectionist” is BS.
Overall, I think the bigger point is that for any company someone applies to, that someone will be most successful if they know what that company is and what they are looking for. If they want good people, a more specific, targeted approach is probably better. If they need bodies, generic is best.


