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Resume blunders: Too many capital letters
The saying "a little bit goes a long way" applies to many things, and capital letters on your resume is one of them!
When writing resumes, people tend to capitalize words out of habit or words they’d like to highlight, but when too many words are capitalized in one sentence or bullet, the effect is lost on the reader.
Resume writing is tight, concise, and punchy by definition so it doesn’t always abide by the grammar rules you learned in school. When it comes to what the industry refers to as “resume-ese” or “resume-speak,” rules can be broken so long as there is consistency within the document.
One example:
Liaised with Accounting, Finance, Cost Accounting, and International Tax to develop new 125-page policy and procedures manual for 260 employees in Customer Service, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and Payroll.
Be sparing with your use of capitals. Department names, for example, that are capitalized as proper nouns within your organization don’t need to be capitalized when you’re writing for someone outside of the organization:
Liaised with accounting, finance, cost accounting, and international tax departments to develop new 125-page policy and procedures manual for 260 employees across customer service, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and payroll groups.
Simply put, too many capital letters dilutes the value of capitalizing words. Be strategic and thoughtful when capitalizing so that your content is easily read and your accomplishments and value take the lead.
Hi Laurie,
What a great post. This is so true. In fact the resume I am working on now is loaded with capitals and it is (was) distracting.
I like your comment, "... too many capitals dilutes the value of the statement..". It really does. You lose the impact of the statement trying to decipher the meaning of all the caps.
Great post.
Thanks!
Erin Kennedy
Professional Resume Services
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I know what you mean! There have been resumes where I cringe trying to read them because they're overloaded with capitalization.
I also believe it's a completely innocent faux-pas. Once jobseekers are aware, it's very easy to fix if they're writing their own resumes.
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That is a great tip. I found some more interesting resume tips at FiredNetwork (www.FiredNetwork.com). You may want to pass them along to your readers; also, there are thousands of additional resources on FiredNetwork, such as lists of VC firms.
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This is true as you told !!! Interesting post!!!
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Yes, if you take a step back and realize how distracting all the capital letters can be, it will help your grammar and formatting. Too much of a good thing CAN be bad!
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Great overview. Your style of writing is really a joy to read.
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sI would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this article. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well.This article have a great view.Despite the universal nature of PDFs, most executive recruiters and internal recruiters still require a Word document to import into their applicant tracking systems.
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Good point, unfortunately over-capitalization happens more often than we'd like to admit. FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS OVER-CAPITALIZE!
-Hanna
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