Resumes are like your golf swing. Everyone has an opinion and a suggestion that can make it better. The trouble is, if you take everyone’s advice you wind up with a document that is three pages too long, two pages too short, over descriptive without saying enough, in a format that’s perfect, but unreadable and says too much about your personality without saying enough about who you are. Too much advice cancels out all advice, much like sound waves muting other sounds.

When learning to golf I started out with affordable group lessons. $200 got me into a six-session group. Half the time I was the only one who showed up so I benefited from one-on-one lessons with a pro. The results were so profound I signed up for 10 more individual lessons and in a matter of a few months was able to shave off 30 strokes from my game. Some of the best advice I got from my pro Tony was to quit reading golf magazines for advice and to only take advice from one person. I paid a little attention to this and found an article on improving your drive distance. One part said to tee the ball high and the next section said to tee the ball low. RIDICULOUS! But that’s golf. It’s a game. Your career is not a game.

Promoting oneself to the world with a resume made up of tips and tricks found on Google, five recruiters opinions, and your friends and family’s advice is bound to be flawed. To begin with, most family and friends are not Pro’s and most recruiters have very little experience. Think of them as your buddy who shoots in the 80′s. He or she is still not a pro. At a company I once worked for, six out of seven recruiters had less than a year of experience. Would you hire a golf Pro with less than a year of experience? Why would you trust your CAREER to anyone’s opinion with so little experience?

If the resume gets you an invite to the tourney, you still have to play great to win the offer. This is where the mental game comes in. In The Golfers Mind: Play to Play Great, Dr. Bob Rotella emphasizes the importance of confidence and playing “loose” during matches. The tournament is not the time for trying out new ideas. That’s what the range is for. How confident will you be when the invite comes? How much practice have you had to prepare for your big moment? Where will you get your advice? How will you know how to choose?