After recruiting in search and in-house for over ten years, I have read thousands of resumes. Due to sheer volume of resumes received and all the other things that vie for the recruiter’s attention in the hiring process – scheduling, interviewing, networking, reference checks, client debriefs, and more – the resume review process is ruthlessly quick.
After recruiting in search and in-house for over ten years, I have read thousands of resumes. Due to sheer volume of resumes received and all the other things that vie for the recruiter’s attention in the hiring process – scheduling, interviewing, networking, reference checks, client debriefs, and more – the resume review process is ruthlessly quick. This is not the time to aim for deep reflection. A recruiter-proof resume is easily readable and grabs your attention quickly with the necessary info to position you for the right job. Ask a friend to look at your resume for 10 seconds. Now put it away. Can your friend answer these 5 questions?
If your resume has gaps or is difficult to follow chronologically, recruiters may just pass it by rather than try to make sense of the dates. Don’t make the recruiter do the work of mapping the arc of your career. Recruiters want to see a track record of forward progress, so they look for dates.
Hopefully you have a summary section at the top that highlights this because, if you don’t, the recruiter has to tease it out based on all the places you’ve worked and jobs you’ve held. Like transcribing dates, pulling out industry and function is extra work. Recruiters sell candidates to hiring managers by their industry and functional expertise. Help them help you by making these clear.
Recruiters will get this by skimming titles and perhaps the first bullet point of the most recent jobs. If you have a summary section on top, your level should be established based on what you have accomplished. If you have management experience of people, projects, and/or budgets, it should be clear upon skimming. If it’s buried, then you just wasted an opportunity to position yourself. Different jobs require different levels. If your level isn’t clear from an initial skimming of the resume, then you will not be considered for the right types of jobs.
Resume filters will catch keywords wherever they are, but for companies that do not use automated filters, you want your special skills to appear where human filters will look – at the very top and at the very bottom. Don’t thread your special skills throughout the job descriptions and nooks and crannies of various sections. If you have very strong special skills – language fluency, facility with in-demand computer skills – highlight this in your summary and definitely mention this in a specific Skills section.
The reader should be able to quickly glean if you’ve managed a project to completion, sold product, improved a process, raised money, or something tangible. Your resume will hopefully have many accomplishments but you want to make sure that at least one jumps out quickly. Again a summary section on top can draw the eye to tangible metrics – revenues generated, costs saved, profits increased, processes improved.
Most of the time, people pour over their resume and spend a lot of time reading it as they edit it. Yes, you want to take a careful look at it for spelling, grammar, content and context. But remember that this is not the way it will be read. A recruiter-proof resume must be able to be read quickly. Career trajectory, industry and function, level, special skills and key accomplishments must be readily apparent.
Is Your Job Search Flexible or Just Unfocused?
As a recruiter, I’ve seen lack of flexibility on the recruiting side with employers clinging to every last detail in their ideal spec while perfectly good candidates get overlooked. As a career coach, I see jobseekers prematurely dismissing possible targets waiting for that perfect job. It’s true that you want to be focused in your job search (otherwise you dilute your efforts and come across as scattered and possibly desperate).
Why Conventional Wisdom On Work Flexibility Is Always Wrong
In a previous post, I wrote about why employment statistics are always wrong. In a similar way, conventional wisdom on work flexibility is always wrong. It is impossible to generalize something that is inherently case-by-individual case. Therefore, any boilerplate advice or conventional wisdom is bound to omit a key consideration, underweight or overemphasize other considerations, or take too long-term or short-term of a view.
How Do You Score On Employers’ Top Five Desired Skills?
Even if you are happily employed, work environments and priorities change. You want to make sure that you are not getting complacent and allowing your skills to rust. The above five skills are always valued, but the standards by which they are measured change over your career. Maybe you got to where you are now because of superior analytical skills and despite below average communication skills, but now you are a manager.
