Ex-Google Recruiter On Three Types Of Phrases You Should Not Include In Resume

In a bid to get the desired jobs, resumes or curriculum vitae (CVs) play a crucial role and must be drafted with utmost care. A well-crafted resume can make applicants stand out, especially since Human Resources departments sift through numerous CVs, selecting only a handful. But at times, some important aspects are overlooked by the applicants, harming their prospects. Nolan Church, the CEO of salary data company FairComp and ex-recruiter of Google and DoorDash, recently revealed that job seekers must avoid three types of phrases to get a better chance at being hired.

As per Church, sentences that are more than 25 words long must be avoided in resumes. Also, he suggested candidates avoid a “word salad” of keywords and write a list of tasks. Church told CNBC Make It, “All of these sentences should be less than 25 words maximum. As the goal of a resume is for me to very quickly understand what you’ve done.” He added that recruiters are likely to have just three to five seconds to go through each resume. “Time is the enemy in life and is the enemy in business. The faster that we can move the faster that we can solve problems,” the ex-Google executive told the publication.

Contenders often tend to ″have this word salad based off of what the [job description],” Church said. Instead, he suggested creating a rule when writing bullet points under job titles: “You’re not allowed to use more than one keyword in a sentence,” he added.

In addition, the day-to-day duties of your job like emailing with your boss or creating your quarterly goals do not give a concrete understanding of what you accomplished and how you helped the business move forward or prosper, he said. “The one I see all the time that just blows my mind is ‘coordinated meetings with X’. There’s literally no business impact for coordinating meetings,” Church told CNBC Make It.

Instead, Church advised job seekers to highlight what they did that truly benefited the business, like roping in new clients, exceeding sales goals, completing the target before the deadline and using numbers to complement it.