has anyone ever gotten the advice to not repeat things on their resume?

_oshun1_

I was advised to not repeat things on my resume and I'm not really sure why. I was under the impression that your resume is just to briefly describe what you did at your work. Of course in an essay one wouldn't want to be overly repetitive and use the same words/phrases, but some job duties between jobs are the same.

If one were i.e. working at a fast food restaurant, and then their next job was working at a different fast food restaurant....one would probably expect to read "flipping burgers" repeated between the jobs...I don't understand the importance of trying to rephrase that to ..."rotating" burgers or something.

I think it sounds a little bit stupid and like I'm trying to be fancy and trick the reader into thinking I did something different between jobs...or it just lacks consistency...I just think this is the wrong advice...

FixedDice

Of course in an essay one wouldn't want to be overly repetitive and use the same words/phrases, but some job duties between jobs are the same.

I think it sounds a little bit stupid and like I'm trying to be fancy and trick the reader into thinking I did something different between jobs...or it just lacks consistency...

1. Application readers, especially ones working for law school, would not fall for "trying to... trick [them] into thinking [you] did something different", nor would they be inclined to think that way.
2. The résumé is an application component as much as the PS and the DS are. If an applicant should be consistent with his or her résumé, why should he or she try to vary diction in PS and DS?

You can aim for consistency in your résumé -- it's your application, after all. I can see both sides of this issue. Some admission committee personnel may be understandable as well.

Some others, however, may be less forgiving and think less positively about you, e.g. "This person is so lazy, (s)he didn't even take the trouble to vary extremely simple one-line bullet points on his/her law school application résumé".

_oshun1_

@FixedDice said:

Some others, however, may be less forgiving and think less positively about you, e.g. "This person is so lazy, (s)he didn't even take the trouble to vary extremely simple one-line bullet points on his/her law school application résumé".

I didnt think of this! Glad I kept it phrased differently and didnt repeat

I'm just tripping over nothing. When I re-read my resume after posting this, I didnt even notice that the bullet points about Discovery were phrased differently.