Your resume is the most important tool you have when searching for a job. It’s the first (and potentially only) thing you have to represent yourself to an employer. Unfortunately, many people feel that their resume is not that important because they will be able to make up for it by impressing the hiring manager in an interview. Yes, the interview is very important but the problem is that you may not get the chance to impress them in an interview if your resume doesn’t impress them first.
Searching for a job can be broken down into four steps: finding the right opportunity, getting considered seriously, selling yourself and closing the deal. Your resume gives you the opportunity to tell employers who you are, what you have done and why you would be a good fit for their organization. Your resume is what gets you to be considered seriously so that you get the chance to sell yourself in an interview.
The person responsible for reviewing resumes will be filtering them either manually or electronically. If they are going to go through your resume manually, they will briefly scan through your resume, not for content but more for keywords that are pertinent to the job opening. This helps them to easily filter out candidates that they don’t want and put aside the ones that they want to review more in depth at a later time. The electronic version is the same thing, except they use software to review keywords in the resumes.
So how long will a recruiter actually look at your resume before they decide if they are interested or not? A study conducted by TheLadders (and online job search site) found it to be only 6 seconds. The study also found that 80 percent of that 6 seconds is spent scanning over your name, the current company you work for, your previous employment, the start and end dates of your previous and current positions and your educational background. Less than 10 seconds, that is all you have to make that first impression…this is why it is important you make sure you fully optimize your resume.
We will cover how to optimize your resume in future posts, so make sure to come back and read the next article in our resume series, Seo for Resumes. And don’t forget that we here at T-Tech go through hundreds of resumes each day. We know exactly what to look for, which gives us the advantage of knowing what sets a resume apart from the rest. This is why we offer professional resume writing services. Whether you are a recent graduate looking for your first job out of college or an executive looking to make a big career move, we can help. Contact us today at 248-616-9600.
References
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/188118/writing_resumes/how_important_is_your_resume.html
http://www.clwill.com/personal-development/how-important-is-a-resume/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/23/resume-tips-for-post-50s_n_1372705.html
