Straight Talk About Your Resume

Your Resume is the one step in your job search over which you have total control. It is your personal career marketing document. Based upon the strength of that one or two pages of information, you will either be selected for an interview from among potentially hundreds of other candidates – or passed over.

The Resume’s Function

The purpose of a Resume is not to get a job! Its purpose is to get an interview. And any candidate in today’s job market is up against very stiff competition.

Put yourself in a Human Resource Director’s shoes. The morning’s mail has just arrived and a stack of 100 or 200 Resumes have been dropped on your desk. Your first goal is going to be narrowing down that stack to perhaps 10 or 20 candidates. So the first function a Resume serves is to eliminate most candidates from consideration.

Job recruiters spend approximately 15 seconds looking at each Resume. In that short time, they make a decision to place you in the “yes” pile or in the “no” pile. This decision can be based on the overall appearance of your Resume, the format, and the three or four key selling points you have listed in your Qualifications Summary at the top of the Resume.

If you make it to the “yes” pile, your Resume will receive a detailed reading. But again, the recruiter is still looking for a reason to eliminate you as a candidate. From that initial pile of Resumes that come in the mail, the recruiter’s goal might be to narrow the list to only five or ten candidates who will be called for an interview. So even if you survived the first screening and made it to the stack of 20, you still have a 50/50 chance of being cut from the final selection.

Remember, this entire process happens solely on the strength of your Resume. And if you survive this process, your Resume then becomes the basis for your interview. The recruiter will use your Resume as an outline to discuss your career history, accomplishments, and qualifications for the position s/he needs to fill at the company.

After the interview, your Resume continues to represent you, as your qualifications are weighed against those of other candidates who have also made it through this interview stage. Assume that only the five or ten best and most qualified candidates were interviewed. Now the company has to make a choice. How do they do that? The people involved in the decision sit down at a conference table and discuss those final five or ten Resumes…again. Looking for reasons to eliminate all but one applicant. Even here, your Resume plays an important role in reminding the company of your qualifications, the impression you made during the interview, etc.

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