It is all too often suggested that you should include your hobbies and personalize your resume for a prospective employer to distinguish you out of the pool of candidates. I disagree wholeheartedly. There is a specific set of qualifications and work skills that the right candidate will possess. Chances are multiple applicants possess all of the qualities X employer is looking for in a candidate. Save your personality for the interview. The sad truth is your words on paper are more likely to be judged then appreciated. Face to face, people can connect with the hobbies and preferences of other people in a way that sorting through resumes does not allow. Your phone voice is more likely to get you in the door than your hand-gliding hobby, and the requisite experience and/or skill set determined whether you got a phone call.

Ultimately hobbies may lead to unfair conclusions about you that hurt your chances of employment. In order to avoid the pass stack, you should eliminate any red flags you may have unwittingly included in your resume. The real danger spot of the resume you are about to send prospective employers may actually be in what you should not include. There is certain information that is too subjective to help you as much as it may hurt you.

Say you indicate in you resume that you work with the humane society and local shelter because you love animals and have four cats that you also love dearly. Most people love animals, right? At this point even if you are qualified to be hired by the company, you have actually created an opportunity to pass on your resume. Depending on how the reviewer feels about pet causes and cats, you have possibly garnered the nickname cat lady' and when it's time to make a hard choice cat lady might not work to your advantage. Whoever is narrowing the pool of applicants may have envisioned you as coming to work with four 8x10 portraits of your cats, while smelling like the house down the street with too many cats, and all of the scenarios he has concocted have no regard for the fact that none of it is true. And because he doesn't know you he doesn't have to care.

A friend of mine once listed the fact that he was a stand-up comedian in a portion of his resume. You can be sure he held the moniker of the comedian' to whoever reviewed it. Despite being extremely well qualified, he may have lost an opportunity based on the inclusion of such personal information. The interviewer seemed uncomfortable with that hobby and

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