by Erin Mayer, March 2009
As a jobseeker, your most important tool is your resume. Through this you get interviews, which lead to offers. Thus, making sure it gets read by employers is one of the best things you can do to increase your chances of landing a great job.
Often, jobseekers are not aware of just how little time is initially spent determining if their resume represents a strong candidate who should be considered, or someone who should be discarded along with countless others.
What jobseekers need to remember is that employers usually start with a huge number of resumes. The best jobs elicit massive numbers of applicants, and smart hiring managers frequently search for talent in vast resume databases. In both cases, hiring managers must, of necessity, find a way to drastically reduce the number of resumes, while simultaneously making sure that the resumes they are left with represent strong candidates. There are two methods by which this is accomplished: personal review and electronic filtering/searching.
The personal method involves the employer going through each resume and determining if it will be saved for closer consideration or tossed out. It is not unusual for hiring managers to make this initial decision in less than a minute. With a quick scan, they will either be struck by your words and consider you, or find nothing that immediately appeals to them and toss your resume out with countless others. In total, they likely see and understand less than 25% of the words on the page. What they do see needs to pop, or the rest will never be read.
Although there are a number of outside factors affecting the outcome, there are two steps you can take to maximize your resume’s ability to catch readers’ eyes. First, focus on formatting your resume. Not chronological or functional formats, but the actual way the words and phrases are aligned on the page. For example, using lists and bullets can quickly call attention to any series of information. Indentations, italicizes, underlines, and the like may be used as well. Every resume is different, so play around with different formats. Choose the one that, at a very quick glance, most easily and effectively conveys your most impressive and qualifying achievements and characteristics. By far the best help you can get in this regard is to have family members or friends read it. Tell them they have 30 seconds to scan it, and then ask them what they got out of it. Ask them how it portrays you, and what qualities were most clearly expressed in such little time. There is no substitute for several sets of eyes…the benefit of having other people review your resume before you submit it cannot be overemphasized.
The second step is your language. Style, word choice, voice, and grammar can play a huge role in the effectiveness of your resume. Keep your style short and concise. Avoid excessive use of adjectives: this eliminates often-unneeded words to give you more room, makes your use of adjectives more meaningful, and helps keep the message clear and unobstructed. Use powerful action words to emphasize your skills and achievements. Be sure to only use the active voice. This consideration requires special treatment. People use the passive voice so naturally that they often do not even realize they are using it. The passive voice is “less direct, less bold, and less concise,” all qualities you should strive for in your resume. “The habitual use of the active voice…makes for forcible writing…of any kind. Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by…[using] the active voice.” The Purdue University Online Writing Lab is a good resource for brushing up on the active and passive voices. As far as grammar goes, strive for perfection. Excellent grammar will do nothing but make your resume clearer and easier to understand, which will prove invaluable to someone who only has 30 seconds to look at it. Check out a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. Every quote above is from it (section 14 to be exact).
Electronic filtering and searching is the second method by which employers “weed out” resumes. On TopBuildingJobs, employers can search through our resume database by company or keywords, such as Purchasing Manager, Vice President of Sales, etc… Some companies run more specific searches on their own databases, sorting by any number of relevant words or phrases. Identifying keywords for the position or area you are interested in can make sure your resume comes up when employers perform this type of electronic filtering. Again, the possibilities are varied and numerous, and depend on the specific position, company, area, expertise, etc… that you are interested in.
Maximizing your resume for both personal review and electronic filtering and searching will give you the best possible chance of having your resume earnestly considered and carefully read. It is the first step a company takes in hiring you, so prepare for it carefully. Go get that job!
