What Not To Include

Class Location: The Internet.

Description: This course lists some things to never include on a resume. 

Objective: Find out if you need to clean your resume up a little.

Your resume is your sales pitch. You want it to highlight only those items that will help you get the job. You don't want to waste space or the interviewer's time with unnecessary or counter-productive information. Below are several items not to include in your resume:

• Information that reveals your age, such as the year you graduated college or every job you held since graduation. You want to be judged on your merits, not your age.

• Hobbies that are not related to your career. Not only are you wasting space, but listing a slew of hobbies will make the interviewer wonder whether you have time to work.

• A statement indicating that your references are available upon request. This should be a given.

• An over-generalized objective such as, "To obtain a challenging position utilizing my skills and experience." Take the time to tailor your objective to the specific job.

• Short-term jobs. You don't want to give the interviewer the impression that you won't stick around. If you had a number of small jobs through a contractor or agency, list the agency as the employer and the individual jobs as projects.

• Your GPA. Once you've been in the professional world for a few years, your GPA no longer matters.

• Information that reveals something potentially controversial about you, such as religion, political affiliation or sexual preference.

• Job experience unrelated to the position you're seeking. Use your limited space to list your experience that shows you're qualified for this job.

• Information on your high school education. If you've graduated college, it's obvious you also graduated high school.

• Anything that shows you in a bad light. You wouldn't try to sell a car by saying how poorly it runs.