Career Coach: 10 Resume Mistakes That Might Cost You Your Dream Job

Welcome to Career Coach, a column for job seekers and employees navigating the ins and outs of finding, landing and succeeding in jobs in the biotech industry. Each month, Carina Clingman, founder of The Collaboratory Career Hub and host of the “Biotech Career Coach” podcast, answers questions from the community. You can email her questions at hello@collaboratorycareerhub.com.

This month, we’re switching gears from our usual Q&A format to focus on a critical aspect of job seeking: your resume.

Important disclaimer: Before we get into the details, I want to emphasize that the tips in this column are specifically for applying to U.S.-based positions. Different countries have different customs and norms. If you’re applying for positions outside the United States, be sure to research the specific expectations and norms for that country.

As I review resumes for my clients, I encounter the same mistakes over and over again—and many are deadly to your job search. During this busy hiring season, it’s important to put your best foot forward. That starts with a resume that doesn’t turn off the hiring team before you even get a chance to interview. Let’s explore the 10 most common resume mistakes and how to avoid them.

In the United States, adding a headshot to your resume is a big no-no because it can introduce unnecessary bias into the process. While it’s common practice in some countries, in the U.S., it’s best to save that great photo for your LinkedIn profile instead.

Your resume should focus on your skills and experience, not your appearance. While hiring managers should be trained to evaluate a resume document based on qualifications, humans are human, and they may make snap judgments when a profile picture is added to the equation.

I can’t stress this enough: Keep your resume formatting simple, even if you think it looks boring! Applicant tracking systems (ATSs) struggle with complex formatting. Beautiful resumes created with tools like Canva featuring multiple columns and fun designs look impressive but often fail to make it through the ATS. Your carefully crafted document never reaches human eyes.

Stick to a clean one-column layout, preferably in PDF format. This ensures your information is correctly parsed and formatting doesn’t end up jumbled. The bottom line: A simple, well-organized resume will always win over a visually stunning but ATS-unfriendly one.

Along those same lines, stick to plain, simple bullet points. Fancy symbols, arrows and emojis are often not interpreted correctly by ATSs and usually look unprofessional. If you’re a creative, such as a marketing professional, link to an online portfolio to share your creativity and personal flair.

While it might seem like a minor detail, using standard bullet points throughout your document contributes to an overall polished and professional appearance.

Typos and grammatical errors are resume killers. They suggest a lack of attention to detail—a trait no hiring manager wants to see, especially when our work in biotech relies on being meticulous and detail oriented. Over the years, I’ve seen interviews canceled many times over a small typo. Always have someone else review your resume before submission.

Pro tip: Read your resume out loud. This can help you catch errors your brain might miss when reading silently. Also, consider using tools like Grammarly, but don’t rely on them entirely. They can miss context-specific errors.

Your email address is often the first thing a hiring manager sees. Make sure it’s professional, ideally based on your name. While “collegedoglover95@yahoo.com” is great for catching your junk mail, it won’t do you any favors on a resume.

Consider creating a dedicated email address for your job search. This not only looks more professional but also helps keep your job-related communications organized and separate from personal emails. If an address with just your name is not available, consider adding something related to your job search. I’ve seen formats like “firstname.lastname.biochemist” and “lastname.scientist” work well.

In the U.S., personal details like marital status, sexual orientation, age, nationality and religion have no place on a resume. We have equal opportunity and nondiscrimination laws to combat any employment decisions based on these (and many other) personal details.

Given employers shouldn’t hire people based on these factors, there’s no need to provide this information, potentially introducing unconscious bias. Stick to professional information directly related to the job you’re applying for.

While opinions vary on this, I find objective statements often come across as self-centered. Instead, use an impactful headline that highlights your value proposition and enthusiasm for the role.

For example, instead of an objective statement like “Seeking a challenging position in biotechnology to utilize my skills” (yes, that’s a real objective statement I recently saw), try a headline like “Innovative Protein Engineer with 5+ Years’ Experience in Solving Challenging Problems Through Antibody Design.” This immediately tells the hiring manager who you are and what you bring to the table.

While keywords are important for ATSs, don’t overdo it. Use them intentionally and in context, demonstrating your impact in relation to each skill or experience. Note: Putting a list of skills at the top of your resume is not helpful to the person reviewing it. A list does not tell me about your depth or breadth of experience in a given area.

A good rule of thumb is to use the job description as a guide. If a particular skill or technology is mentioned multiple times in the job posting, it’s likely important and should be reflected in the top half of the first page of your resume. If done well, you can even use selective bolding to highlight the most important keywords so they stand out while still providing good context for the resume reviewer.

Avoid empty phrases like “detail oriented” or “team player.” Instead, show how you embody these qualities through specific, measurable achievements.

For instance, instead of saying you’re detail oriented, you might mention you “Implemented a new quality-control process that reduced errors by 30%.” This not only demonstrates your attention to detail but also quantifies your impact.

While we’ve moved away from the strict one-page rule, remember that recruiters spend an average of seven seconds reviewing a resume. Keep it concise (two to three pages max), with the most important information on the top half of the first page. Anything longer than three pages starts to feel more like a CV, and it likely won’t help you land an interview. It might even hurt your chances by overwhelming the initial resume reviewer, who is usually a nonscientific recruiter.

Think of your resume as a highlight reel, not a comprehensive catalog of everything you’ve ever done. Focus on your most impressive and relevant achievements, especially those that align closely with the job you’re applying for. You can always provide more information, like a comprehensive list of publications, later in the process. Or, simply hyperlink to your PubMed or ResearchGate page to save space and also make you look incredibly organized!

One mistake I often see is using the same generic resume for every application. Yes, I notice when a candidate applies to multiple jobs and I review the same document over and over! Take the time to tailor your resume for each position. This doesn’t mean rewriting it from scratch, but it does mean adjusting your highlighted skills and experiences, primarily on the top half of the first page, to match the language and skills in the job description.

Send me an email at hello@collaboratorycareerhub.com if you want my boring and very effective resume template. I’m happy to share it! Good luck with your job search, and here’s to creating resumes that open doors!