BusinessVibesToday’s job market is all about tough competition and the struggle to stand out. Resumes are one of the main tools used to advertise yourself as the best for a position. When looking for a job entry at JobTonic, or other online job search boards, you do your best to write captivating motivation letter, right? Well, it is surely important, yet not the decision-making factor. Despite the fact that HR professionals claim to spend up to five minutes looking through each resume, it is in fact up to six SECONDS that decision is made. Thus, here are five mistakes people make that prevent them from getting a detailed resume reviewing.
1) Telling the story of your life. The main things HR is looking for when screening a pile of resumes sent for a job entry is your recent work history and if you have acquired there the skills needed for the position you are applying for. And this is it – no one wants to read your autobiography. You can bring a more detailed resume with you to an in-person interview.
2) Including too much data. People tend to read structured texts rather than those having huge blocks of information. Make sure to choose the most important information and use bold fonts to show the beginning of the next resume block. Yet, be careful with bullet pointing – it shouldn’t look like a grocery list!
3) Pictures. Even though most recruiters suggest you put your picture in a resume, it may work against you. It often happens that while screening your resume, HR spends about one-third of the time (those six seconds) on your photo rather than on the list of skills you have. And by the way, unusual fonts are as distractive.
4) Bad structure. If the resume is poorly organized, recruiters tend to get lost and bored. A strict hierarchy is needed – put your work experience above your education and in a reverse order (that is your latest jobs at the top). If you are older than 30 or you worked more than in ten different companies, don’t go beyond that – it is already an ancient history. Save it for the interview.
5) Bland language. As we already mentioned, no one has time to read all the resumes in details, so recruiters are looking for the keywords in one matching the job description. To attract their attention and grab a little more than those precious six seconds, include some of the key words from the job description in your resume.
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