Resume First Impressions

First Impressions on Paper

Hiring managers and human resource professionals are inundated with resumes and sometimes resort to skimming them for highlights. This takes 10 to 30 seconds. In that span of time any number of pieces of information can jump out and make you look like you are the perfect candidate or not even close.  The first impression of your resume is vitally important.

Name

Is your name on the resume? Go ahead and laugh but I get hundreds of resumes every week and more times than you would think, there is not a name on the resume. Also if you put your name and contact information into a “header” sometimes it appears as grayed out and other times it doesn’t appear at all unless the person reviewing it clicks insert, header, edit and then it shows up.

Worse are the ones that arrive with the candidate’s first name spelled incorrectly. If you put your name in all capital letters (e.g., NANCY and you spell it NACNY, spell check will not necessarily highlight it as being incorrect). It’s not spelled wrong; it’s just all capital letters. Read the resume or reject it?

Location

In the age of identity theft and everyone afraid of disclosing too much information, at the very least include city and state. If the hiring company is not paying for relocation, they are likely not going to want to pay to fly you in from the other side of the country. Can they determine where you live quickly? Read the resume or reject it?

Telephone Number/E-Mail

Keep laughing. Beautifully crafted cover letters imploring me to please call to discuss the opportunity so the candidate can expand on their relevant work experience that do not include a telephone number or an e-mail address in either the letter or on the resume make up about 20% of the resumes I receive. Yes, I can figure out the email address usually by finding it on the original email. However, if I save your resume and don’t have an immediate opportunity for you, when I pull it back up from the database and there is not a phone number or email on it. How many hiring managers will spend time trying to find the information?

Objective

If you have an objective on your resume and it is to become a Marketing Manager and you are applying for a SEO Specialist job, you might want to think about how that makes you look to the person reviewing the resume. Obviously you are not applying for the right job. Read the resume anyway or reject it?

Give the person reviewing the resumes what they want and what they need right up front. Why jeopardize your chances?