A senior recruiter at Google has spilled the beans on some of the best and worst things to include on your resume if you’re trying to land a gig at the tech giant or any other company.

Erica Rivera is a Chicago-based senior recruiter at Google. In a TikTok video which now has more than 2 million views, she reveals some of the biggest red flags that she sees in resumes.

And she’s seen many of them: Rivera said she screens thousands of resumes as part of her job.

Rivera covers resumes for roles including application engineering, data analyst, software engineering, product management, program management and UX design.

1. Don’t include your full address

It’s commonplace to include your address up the top of your resume. And while this is important, Rivera said there’s no need to include your full address down to your street.

“We don’t need the full address: city and state only,” she said in the TikTok video.

2. Objective statements are old news

An objective statement is a line about your career intent that’s placed front and centre in your resume. But this has “gotta go”, according to Rivera, as it has now become archaic and outdated.

“That was 1970,” she said. “We are in 2022.”

3. Tailor your work history

A long list of all your past jobs down to your part-time role while in high school is unnecessary and may cost you the attention of the recruiter or human resources expert, Rivera said.

Instead, a work history on a resume should include only the roles and positions relevant to the one you’re applying for.

“We don’t need your entire work history since you started your professional career,” Rivera said. “What we need to focus and hone in on is tailoring your search and resume to the role you’re applying for.”

4. Use active works

It’s important to scan over your resume and replace all of the passive verbs you may have included.

“‘I helped, I was responsible for’. Nah,” Rivera said. “Take some of these recommendations I’m sharing here, and apply them to your resume.”

These better active verbs include the likes of: streamlined, managed, implemented, improved, strategised, increased produced and generated.

5.There’s no need to include your references

While it’s crucial to have good references, you don’t need to include their full details in your resume, according to Rivera.

“References available upon request,” she said. “We don’t need it. We will ask you if we need your references.”

6. Take out the date you graduated

When including details of your graduation and academic qualifications, there’s no point including the date. The important thing is providing you have the degree, she said, not when you got it.

“Don’t set yourself up for potential age bias,” Rivera said.

7. There’s no need to say you can use Word

It’s assumed knowledge now that you can use the suite of Microsoft apps like Word and Excel - it’s silly to include them nowadays, Rivera said.

“We live in an era where it is assumed that more people than not possess these skills, so it is best to leave them off,” she said.

8. Make sure the formatting is consistent

Make sure that your resume has consistent formatting across the board, so it doesn’t look like you’ve been making it up as you go along.

“Using a variety of fonts, inconsistent bolding, different date formats…will make it seem like you’ve gradually added sections to the same document over the course of several years,” she said.