Avoid These 10 Pharma Resume Mistakes Now

One of my peers once said me, “Saket, no matter how hard I try to impress the recruiters, my resume doesn’t work-out.”

When I checked his pharma resume, I found number of issues he wasn’t aware about. I helped him with corrections and later on it helped him to get a number of interview calls.

Problem here was; to know the things that shouldn’t go into your resumes.

He asked me, “What was I doing wrong?”. I said, “Your words how hard I try to impress were reflected in your resume. Whereas your resume is meant to express and not to impress.”

In this post, I am going to share the most common mistakes to avoid while drafting and sharing your resume with the recruiters.

Your resume should be factual and actual of your professional competence.

Though there are several ways to optimize your resume, here are the ones that will perhaps cost you a job. Let’s dive right in.

1. Incomplete Information

Recruiters need your personal stuff to connect with you. If you want your resume to be quickly attributable, put the below details easily accessible.

• Contact details (Email, Phone No., Address, etc.)
• Latest Educational Qualification – Just your last qualification is enough to land you on the job (Don’t include a table or matrix of your academics)
• Clear timelines of your job postings.
  For example: “From DD-MM-YYYY to DD-MM-YYYY (XX Years)”
• Your undertaking at the end of the resume.
• Don’t use headers to put out your personal information. Online software tracking systems cannot read those and mark them as “Missing”.
• Utilize the space wisely.

Otherwise, you’ll end up being ignored.

Once you do this, the next thing recruiters easily catch in your resume is typo and grammar mistakes.

2. Typographical and Grammatical Mistakes

This is the place to show the quality of your resume writing.

Few grammatical mistakes can be ignored but too many would definitely highlight your poor documentation skills.

According to a survey conducted to find the most watched parameters in reviewing resumes, it was revealed that typo mistakes are more likely to get attention.

So, the best way is to AVOID making them.

To identify and rectify them, you can ask your trusted colleagues to help you. Because when people self-write their resumes, it is hard to find the gaps themselves.

You can also use grammer checking tools to wipe out those errors.

3. Putting Responsibilities More Than Milestones

Nobody wants to go through your daily activities. Instead, it’s great to see your achievements.

Talk about your accomplishments rather than your job responsibilities.

Your milestones will make you recognize how result-oriented and performance-centric you are.

Just to give you an example, here are the two statements.

1. Responsible to conduct routine manufacturing activities and bring yield within acceptable criteria.
2. Effectively handled drug manufacturing to ensure the product yield consistency. Recognized within the industry for enhancing the process operations and productivity by +10% in FY2019-20.

Which one looks action-oriented? Certainly #2. Writing your achievements through quantifiable words instead of just showing what you are responsible for makes sense. Right?

Further, replace the “responsible for” with action verbs like (Spearheaded, Implemented, Achieved, etc.) to boost up the tone of your pharma resume.

Weighing your statements genuinely makes you credible.

4. Sharing Your Same Pharma Resume Everywhere

Professionals often share the same copy of their resume for different roles and think that their resume will do the rest of the work. Well, that’s a mistake.

Look at each job role carefully and you will see that they demand something unique.

To make it a habit, follow this simple technique before sending out your resumes to different jobs.

1. Analyze the opportunity.
2. Note down the key performance indicators (KPIs) in the job descriptions offered.
3. Make note of how your skill set is relevant to the position’s needs and keep that in mind.
4. Make sure the relevant keywords are included in your resume in the best possible way (give accurate information).
5. Convert the file to PDF.
6. Rename it to something like this “John Resume_Company Name_Position” so that you don’t have to remember the purpose of that file in future.
7. Do this for every job you approach and keep them in one folder for easy retrieval.

This is the simplest way to trace the multiple resumes and follow-up with each job opportunity uniquely.

5. Missing Objective Statement and Professional Headshot

Missing Objective Statement:

Putting an Objective Statement is optional. But you should. Remember not to include vague statements like “An expert and goal-oriented professional seeking more growth opportunities.”

Such statements do not justify any objective.

Try to find a common thread between the employer and yourself and then create an impactful statement that quantifies.

For example, you may state “QA Professional having 10+ years of experience in effectively reducing quality issues of various MNCs by 30% overall.”

Precise statements tend to get a bonus point while getting shortlisted. So, ensure you prepare such one-liners and test them with different recruiters.

Missing a Professional Headshot (Mainly for International Hiring):

A professional headshot is a photograph of you with professional attire including your head and shoulders.

Again optional, but you should include it in your every resume. This showcases your personal branding and helps the employer make the first impression about you.

Use attire that is simple in design and contrast in color. Take a photograph on a plain white background preferably.

6. Improper Design and Layout

Editing a resume requires skill. Recruiters immediately form their opinion when they look over your resume about design and layout.

Cluttered resume looks irritating as people need to find what they are looking for.

Usually less complex is sufficient. Do not use black background over white text. Choose a design and layout that is simple, clean, easy to read, and short.

Avoid putting your education qualification in tabulated form and only include your latest degree with % or grade.

You should also include your LinkedIn profile link in your resume to showcase how well your professional presence is.

Keep the text sizes on medium. Don’t make the keywords bold just for the sake of emphasizing them.

That way, you’ll end up having an uncluttered resume focused more on your skills.

7. Writing to Impress

Some professionals feel if they add buzzwords to their resume, they’ll impress the employer.

This will only damage your resume’s credibility. As a rule, it will be best to use words that relate to your job application and match your skills.

Avoid using buzzwords like:

• Problem solver
• Hardworking
• Dynamic
• Strategically sound
• Thinking outside the box

These words will add fuel to the fire. It becomes very tricky and difficult to justify those. In short, portray as how you actually are.

8. More Than 3 Pages

Your resume is not an essay. So don’t make it long. Rather make it of less than 3 pages or maximum of 3 pages unless you have vast experience to back it.

Recruiters don’t have much time to filter the keywords they are searching for, so it is better to respect it.

To a fresher, go for a 1-page resume that communicates well. Try out your editing skills just like Elon Musk.

It’s better to implement infographics than to write long sentences. Infographics communicates effectively in a lesser space.

Keeping it short but informative increases your chances of getting an interview call.

9. Including Personal Information

It is not required now, especially in India, to share your personal information such as Gender, Marital Status, Religion, Personal Hobbies, etc. as practiced in the past.

Don’t include this stuff and clutter your resume space unless it’s international hiring as few countries need them.

10. Keyword Stuffing

Some feel firing the recruiters with multiple keywords will do the trick. This process is keyword stuffing and it’s better you don’t do this.

Keyword stuffing not only makes a bad impression but makes your resume redundant. Recruiters think you didn’t care to put some quality time drafting your resume.

On the contrary, use the keywords wisely that flow between the lines naturally.

Conclusion

By avoiding these mistakes, recruiters will see the exact details that matter to them most. Ultimately, they will be reading a professional resume.

Though this is not an exhaustive list, it’s sufficient enough to keep your resume productive and bring you to the closest fit.

If you feel stuck in deciding a proper design start for your resume, Novoresume is a great place to tailor your resume online with design-ready templates.

Once your resume hits the spot, the time is to prepare for an interview.

Now I’d like to turn it over to you, what resume mistakes are you making from the above list? Are they covered in this post? Or do you want to add something else?

Either way, quickly let me know in the comment below.