This is By Far the Dumbest Resume Trend

This is By Far the Dumbest Resume Trend This is By Far the Dumbest Resume TrendOctober 14, 2014 By the Resume Genius Team Reviewed by Mark Slack, CPRWTheres one resume trend that we absolutely cant stand Skill Ratings. Learn why this resume tactic is hurting your application, and what you can do instead. Make a Resume in MinutesDear Job Seekers,If you decide to create an infographic resume (against the suggestion of basically every hiring manager), please, for the love of god, DO NOT do this for your skills sectionDo not do this or you are a Bad Person.Oh look, a cute point ordnungsprinzip to visualize your skills Too bad it makes no sense.Creating a skills point system is an awful and illogical style of presentation that will only serve to confuse the hiring manager and make them trash your resume quickly. This trend is fruchtwein often found on graphic design resumesthat like to push the limits of creativity.Lets take a close look at why a skills point system makes no sense at a ll. Take this exampleAdobe Photoshop 7/10Adobe Dreamweaver 3/10Microsoft Word 10/10Excel 3/10Atrocious. Presenting information like this relies on a series of moronic assumptions which, stacked againstone another, creates a towering pile of illogical BS so high the peak is barely visible. Its a bad resume trend, and people should just stop it.Spock finds your resume most illogical.Nonsensical Assumption 1 All of these skills have the same level of difficultyIf you think Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Word have the same level of difficulty, you are either living under a rock or seriously overestimating your Photoshop skills.These scales are completely meaningless.You cannot create a point scale and compare your skills against each other when those skills differ in quality and difficulty. Period.Dont believe me? Tell me if this makes any sense to youKickball 10/10Brain Surgery 5/10It doesnt make sense, does it? The only thing youve learned about my kickball skills is that Im utterly pe rfect at it (which is true). With regards to brain surgery, would you trust someone with an 8/10, or a 9/10? What does that even mean?It means nothing. Literally nothing which brings us to point 2.Stop doing this. Just stop.Nonsensical Assumption 2 The point scale means somethingIn fact, these scales are completely meaningless.In order for a 10-point scale to have any meaning, people would need to design standardized tests that measure each skill on a 10-point scale.NEWSFLASH No one has designed tests to rate your ability on a 10-point scale for the majority of skills youll put on a resume.In other words, when people rate themselves, it is also known as making $h up.Try asking someone what the difference is between being a 5/10 and a 6/10 on Microsoft Word. What do you think they would say? TipRG Hint There is no difference.Please stop. I cant take it anymora.Nonsensical Assumption 3 People are good at rating themselvesActually, people are horrible at rating themselves across the board.Did you know that idiots are more likely to rate themselves higher for tasks they are awful at, whereas intelligent people are more likely to rate themselves lower for tasks they are good at? This is a cognitive bias called illusory superiority.How can that be? Whereas intelligent people are more aware of the inherent difficulties of a given task, an idiot will obliviously think that everything is easy because theyre incapable of thinking deeply enough about the problem.(This explains the middle-management idiot phenomenon, and also why braggarts tend not to be the sharpest tools in the shed.)Just awful.So how should you present your skills?Theonly place your skills actually mean anything is in the meat of your professional experience section. Thats where you tell the hiring manager exactly what you accomplished with your skills, which is literally the only thing that matters.What have we learned? A fanciful skills rating scale gives absolutely no information whatsoever and yo u should burn your resume to a crisp if youve included one.Thanks for reading.