Six Bad Résumé Ideas—and Three Good Ones

With unemployment still high, many job seekers are feeling the heat when it comes to standing out amid a very large sea of candidates. But there's a fine line between being creative and coming up with something that quickly ends up in the recipient's "delete" folder. To demonstrate the difference, CareerBuilder reveals the following six résumé blunders, along with three winning creative efforts, which it compiled from a recent survey of nearly 2,300 U.S. hiring managers. Clearly, there's pressure on applicants to distinguish themselves. One in five HR managers spends less than 30 seconds reviewing applications, and about 40 percent spend less than a minute, according to the survey. "It's a highly competitive job market, and you have to clearly demonstrate how your unique skills and experience are relevant and beneficial to that particular employer," says Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. "We see more people using infographics, QR codes and visual résumés to package their information." That said, employment experts say that good judgment should always rule the day.