The Resume Mistake That Makes Experienced Candidates Look Average

It’s unfortunately true that the candidate with two years of experience and the right keywords will land an interview back before the candidate with twelve years of proven results if their resume reads like a job description.

Yeah, you have more experience than most people in the room. But if your resume reads like everyone else’s, do you really think they’re going to call you back? The good news is, we have a fix for this particular problem and we’re happy to spill all the tea 😜

What Is the Resume Mistake That Experienced Candidates Make Most Often?

They describe their work instead of their impact. After years in a role, the work becomes so familiar that experienced professionals often write about it the way they'd explain it casually, and without context, the way they would to a colleague.

Phrases like managed a team, oversaw operations, and responsible for client relationships are activities not accomplishments, beloved. And in a competitive job market where resumes that include measurable accomplishments are significantly more likely to get a callback, the difference between describing what you did and proving what you delivered is the difference between being seen and getting skipped.

The fix is pretty simple. Instead of just listing what you did, ask yourself “so what?” the next time you’re looking over your resume. You managed the team, right? So what changed because of how you managed it? You oversaw operations. So what improved? You handled client relationships. What was the end result? How did that impact the company’s overarching goals?

Why Do Experienced Professionals Fall Into This Trap More Than Early-Career Candidates?

Honestly, there are a few reasons. The first being that there's typically an emotional attachment to the various accomplishments we've had in our career. There’s nothing particularly insidious about that but that attachment sometimes turns into a qualified candidate trying to include everything they’ve ever done on their resume instead of curating the strongest evidence that applies to the new role they’re going out for.

Experienced professionals also tend to stay in roles where their work is widely understood from an internal perspective. You didn't have to explain what you did to the people around you because everyone already knew 😂 But your resume requires that you translate that institutional, often niche, knowledge so that a stranger who has never seen you work can understand it. For most people, that ability to translate between one role and the next isn’t a skill that comes easily. 

Last but not least? Experienced professionals often downplay certain accomplishments in favor of making general statements. Giving a level overview of what they’ve done doesn’t set them up for success though. It just makes that twelve-year veteran look interchangeable with someone who's been in the field for a significantly shorter period of time.

How Do I Rewrite My Resume Bullets to Show Impact?

The fastest way is to start with your end result and work backwards from there. What outcome came to fruition because you were in that role? Tangible examples are things like revenue generated, costs reduced, time saved, processes improved, teams built, problems solved, etc. If you have a number or a metric (check your old evaluations), then use it. If you don't, use language that communicates scale like high-volume, enterprise-level, cross-functional, company-wide, etc. 

If you’re looking for a specific formula then something along the lines of action verb, what you did, at what scale, and what the measurable result was should work to your benefit.

For example: "Led the implementation of a new client onboarding process across a team of fifteen, reducing average onboarding time from six weeks to three and improving first-year retention by 22%." 

That bullet tells a hiring manager everything they need to know. You lead, you build systems, you work at scale, and you deliver measurable outcomes. None of that was implied or just an overview that will get you ignored because all of it was implicitly stated.

What Else Are Experienced Candidates Getting Wrong on Their Resumes?

The biggest one is including waaaayyyy too much information. The instinct to document an entire career is understandable but it often works against you. If you're an experienced professional, focus on the last ten to fifteen years of your career and only include jobs and accomplishments that show your qualifications for the role you're applying to.

That job from 2003 is not helping you, sis. The skills section that includes software you haven't touched in a decade (and honestly isn’t even industry standard anymore) isn’t helping you either. The objective statement at the top that says "seeking a challenging opportunity to leverage my skills" should also be removed entirely because your objective is to get a damn job. You don’t need to waste space on your resume telling them that. 

Every line on your resume should earn its spot. If it doesn't directly support the case for why you're the right person for this specific role, it doesn't belong there (unless you’re applying for a role with the government but those resumes have completely different rules than civilian ones and those are the ones we’re talking about).

How Do I Make Sure My Summary Reflects My Actual Level of Experience?

Your professional summary is the first thing a hiring manager reads and it sets the expectation for everything that follows. If it's vague, generic, or reads like it could belong to anyone, you've already lost ground before they've seen a single bullet point. Remember, a hiring manager looks at a resume for approximately 6-8 seconds before moving on or deciding if they want to read more. Your summary needs to make every one of those seconds count. 

Here at 6 Figure Chick Consulting™ we always teach our clients to lead with your years of experience (capped at 10+ years to avoid age bias). Then name the type of work you specialize in and include one or two of your most significant outcomes. And make sure every word in that summary makes you shine.

"Results-driven professional with a passion for excellence" tells a hiring manager nothing. "Operations leader with 10+ years building and scaling cross-functional teams in fast-growth environments, with a track record of reducing operational costs by an average of 20% year over year" tells them everything they need to decide you're worth a deeper dive and/or conversation.

Let's Wrap This Up

Your experience is an asset but the way you've been presenting it on paper might not be. Thankfully this common resume mistake is just a translation problem, not an actual reflection of your value, and packaging is something we can fix. Because you've got too much experience and have worked too hard to hand a hiring manager a resume that reads like everyone else's. Your receipts deserve better presentation than that.

If you want help translating what you've built into language that the job market actually responds to, come work with us. Over 5,000+ Black and brown women just like you have used our resources and framework to move from overlooked to in demand in their next strategic career move.