Expert's Resume Advice: Cut Out 'Text Bricks'
One employment expert has called "text bricks" the number one thing to avoid when writing your resume.
But can you guess what a text brick is?
Nolan Church, who worked as a recruiter for Google, describes them as: "Endless streams of text that have a lot of words but not a lot of content.”
And he told CNBC that they're a big turn-off for employers.
Church, who now runs a recruitment company, says people find it difficult to be concise when they're writing about their work experience.
Bullet points are a good way to organize your writing. But according to Church, people should try to write no more than one line for each bullet point.
It's not just because it looks nicer on the page — being concise is an important skill in many workplaces, so you'd better show that you can do it on your resume.
Imagine that the person reading your resume will only be looking at it for 10 seconds, suggests Church. Short, easy-to-read bullet points are the best way to explain your skills and experience.
But how can you make your writing more concise? Church makes two suggestions.
One is to use tools like ChatGPT or Grammarly to help make edits to your writing — these tools can help make your text shorter if you ask them to.
Another suggestion is to get people to read your resume before you send it anywhere.
Church says that as many as five to 10 people should be reading it and giving advice.
So keep that resume short and sweet, get it checked, and you could be swapping text bricks for gold bricks!
