I've looked at over 40,000 résumés, and these are the 3 most annoying things I've seen

6/15/2016
Jacquelyn Smith

When Tina Nicolai began working as a recruiter for Walt Disney World in the late 1990s, she noticed that many job seekers were submitting flawed résumés.

"I realized people simply did not know how to market themselves or their achievements," Nicolai tells Business Insider. "And that's how I knew there was a market to educate job candidates at all levels and in all industries."

So in 2010, she founded Résumé Writers' Ink.

"Since launching my company, I've read over 40,000 résumés," she says. And there are a few things she's seen over and over again that are "pretty irritating."

She says: "These are the three most annoying things I've seen: Summaries that are way too long; overused résumé jargon; and appearing too formal and rigid."

Summaries are annoying, she explains, when they are written in a formal tone and include too many adjectives. "After a while, the summaries can read like a lengthy chapter in a book. It's better to list a few bullets with pointed achievements and a branded tag line stating, 'known for achieving XYZ.'"

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