An Aussie job seeker has missed out on getting jobs due to one major mistake with her resume. Aussie workers are being warned not to waste their money with “fake professionals” offering resumes for people to purchase.

Recruiter and career coach Tammie Ballis said one of her clients had missed out on administration jobs due to a “crappy resume” she had paid someone $300 for. Ballis told Yahoo Finance the resume looked like a “dog’s breakfast” and was formatted poorly, had no bullet points and was difficult to read.

“Most of the time the resume is the problem and people don’t understand that,” Ballis said.

“If you’ve got good experience and you’re not getting job interviews, it’s because your resume is poorly formatted.”

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The Realistic Careers owner said there were a bunch of “dodgy resume writers” selling their services on social media. She said she’s seen some job seekers pay as much as $700 for “snake oil” and it’s actually hindering their job prospects.

“No one should be paying $700 for a resume,” Ballis told Yahoo Finance.

“The thing that really annoys me and makes my blood boil is people think that they can be a resume writer when they have never hired anyone, they've never seen an ATS system or a recruitment platform and they just see it as a side hustle.

“It’s just really sad and people are losing job opportunities and that’s what really bothers me.”

Do you have a work story to share? Contact tamika.seeto@yahooinc.com

Resumes read in ‘six seconds’

Ballis offers custom resume writing but noted there were a range of free templates available for job seekers to use online.

“Use the free ones, that’s fine as long as it’s plain and simple,” she said, advising people to steer clear of colourful resumes unless they were in creative industries and ones with lots of columns.

“They are reading hundreds of resumes, especially now that the job market’s really full on, you need to show your experience very, very quickly.

“What everyone needs to understand is it literally takes six seconds for someone to skim through a resume and it needs to be clear and obvious.”

Ballis said the biggest mistakes she sees with resumes were when they were not formatted neatly, they didn't include bullet points, they didn’t include the month and the year of jobs, and they were too long.