All right! The time has finally come for us to dive into the wonderful world of resumes. Let’s start with some general resume tips; things anyone writing a resume should pay attention to.
The 6-Second Rule
A few years ago TheLadders conducted a study on recruiter behavior. They discovered recruiters spend about six seconds reviewing an individual resume before deciding if the candidate was a good fit for the job
That might seem like an exaggeration, but I can tell you it’s absolutely true.
In 2016 at InvitedHome, on top of all my other tasks and responsibilities, I reviewed more than 1800 resumes from job seekers. If something catches my eye in the first six seconds, maybe I’ll take 30 seconds to read more. If not, I move on. So what does that mean for you?
1. Follow all the rules.
Whether it’s grammar, punctuation, or specific instructions unique to the company you’re applying with, follow the rules.
At InvitedHome, our application is pretty simple, but we have a few specific instructions in place to help weed people out who can’t follow directions. Like writing a Culture Letter instead of a typical cover letter. Candidates who don’t follow those rules make my life easier, because I don’t have to review their resumes to tell they’re not the right match for us.
If I do get to your resume and you spell something incorrectly, or you don’t capitalize words that should be capitalized, or you use commas where you should use periods, etc, you better believe I’m moving on to other applicants who took the time to make sure they followed proper writing rules.
2. One-page resumes.
Do you think a recruiter can review two pages in six seconds? Nope. If you want to go to two pages, that’s fine, but make absolutely sure the info on the first page grabs the recruiter’s attention. Make sure the first page is easy to read and clearly portrays the most important information you want the recruiter to see.
3. Use keywords.
What do the recruiters want to see? Fortunately, they’ve probably already told you.
Hiring managers always include specific words and phrases in their job postings that define exactly what they’re looking for. When they review resumes, those are the words and phrases that catch their attention.
The same is true if the company uses software to scan your resume. The scanner will search for those keywords and remove any resume that doesn’t include them.
So scan the job description of the job you’re applying for, read the website of the company you’re applying for, and include actual words and phrases from those sources, verbatim, in your resume.
And yes, that means you should be writing UNIQUE RESUMES for each job you apply for. You don’t have to start from scratch every time, but you should absolutely be tailoring your resume to the specific job you’re looking at.
4. Have the right focus.
Remember, focus on who you want to be, not who you were. This can be particularly hard for vets. You are - and should absolutely be - proud of every part of your military service, but not every part of your military service is applicable to the job you’re applying for. Don’t muddle the waters by including every award and every training course and every job on your resume. Instead, only include the stuff that directly relates to the hiring manager’s job.
Hopefully, these general resume tips will help you get started putting words on paper. Next time, we’ll explore the specific words you should (and shouldn’t) be using.