I look at hundreds of resumes in a month and it never ceases to amaze me that I keep seeing certain things pop up in them that are outdated, redundant, or just unnecessary.

And it's at all levels, from new graduates to the C-Suite, you need to remove these three items from your resume.

The first thing to remove from your resume is an objective. A tale as old as time, "Seeking a position as an Executive Director," is fairly obvious from the application and resume you just submitted. Every recruiter, hiring manager, and person who is going to look at your resume knows what you're objective is!

Instead, replace the outdated objective with an executive summary. Keep it short, 3-4 sentences, but talk about who you are and what you bring to the table. A summary on a resume is a great spot to start branding yourself. Don't be vague in your resume summary either - be specific on the skills you possess and why they're beneficial.

The second thing to remove from your resume are references or the statement, "References available upon request." Another thing of the past, there is a time and place for references and it's at the offer stage.

This section takes up valuable real estate on your resume that you can use to further drive home actionable resume bullet points to continue to validate your skills.

Additionally, if you wanted to be really smart about your references, you would utilize them at the start of your job search to make introductions to companies or hiring managers you're interested in.

The third thing to remove from your resume is irrelevant or redundant work experience. If you're an IT Director and you started your career working three different programmer jobs that had similar job descriptions, you can probably just list them out on the bottom of your resume like the below example.

Additional Work Experience:

Programmer, ABC IT Company, Columbia, SC, 2005 to 2007

Your resume should speak to your brand, your future job, and highlight relevant experience and accomplishments.