THE 8 SECOND RESUME
by Janis Whitaker, JP Whitaker & Associates
Ever wonder how important your resume is in catching the eye of a company? Recently, I was talking with a recruiter. He informed me, he spends an average of 8 seconds looking at each resume! He skims the page looking for key words (particular skills, degrees, and experience)and if he doesn’t see these key words, it is time to move to the next resume.
If his eye catches the key words, he will then spend about 1-2 minutes looking for other important aspects such as accomplishments and work stability. This 8-year veteran recruiter will not read a resume over 2 pages long, no matter how good it looks at first glance. He just doesn’t have time to read all that information. He loves bullet points, short sentences describing what has been achieved, and a clear job objective. One of his ‘pet peeves’ is a resume with a generic job objective!
When posting your resume on line, go back often to update or refresh your page. Many recruiters will seek a certain number of resumes at one sitting. If they find what they are looking for after skimming the first 15 resumes, they simply stop looking.
So, next time you send or post your resume:
• be clear and specific about what you are looking for
• be concise in your job qualifications and descriptions
• focus your resume to the employers needs, skills, and experience
• update your resume often to keep it current and ‘on top of the resume stack’
