Have you ever wondered why you didn’t hear back from a company about a job when you sent in your resume? You know you were fully qualified for the position, but maybe there was some sort of red flag on your resume that you missed, in which case, you can bet that the recruiter or headhunter for the company spotted it. Wouldn’t it be great if you knew what a headhunter was thinking when he or she looked at your resume? What are the things that make them pick your resume out of thousands? Well we went straight to the source and asked headhunters asked exactly what they think when they look at your resumes:
Headhunter: A Female Executive’s Best Friend?
To get an idea of the system they used, let’s look at what Ed Blum, the director of professional search at Accounting Management Solutions, does with a resume. Ed sees more than seventy-five resumes each day as he searches for finance and accounting professionals for clients in the Boston area. He has to be able to quickly pick out the right people for each job. First he looks at the title—it is the easiest way to get a sense of what the person is and what they do. He spends fifteen seconds on a resume before he rules it out. It only takes sixty seconds for him to decide if it should go in the “yes” column. “Maybe’s” are back up and only referred to occasionally. He looks at dates of employment, what companies they worked for, and when. Did they “job hop”? He pays little attention to the objective or the summary. He is really focused on work experience and it being the best fit for the job and company. Depending on the need of the client, the type of degree an applicant got and the quality of the school he or she attended can be pluses, but are not as important as most recent experience.
Headhunters Need Not Apply: The Horror Stories
Sara Sutton Fell, CEO of FlexJobs, said, “Make sure the resume is tailored specific to the job opening and truly, honestly error-free. Spending that little extra effort will help get your resume seen. It’s a tough time for job-seekers, with unemployment at an all-time high and lots of competition for available jobs. Personally, I have received hundreds of applications for a single job within a day of posting! In terms of managing the process as best I can in a remotely reasonable amount of time, I have to focus on the candidates who have shown that they are (1) passionate about the job and my company, (2) show a high level of professionalism, and (3) help show me directly why they would be a great person to hire for the job.”
The candidates with resumes that will absolutely be passed over for consideration by headhunters are ones that have:
- Graphics: “I will immediately discredit someone who has flowery bullets or other graphics; the resume should be a list of accomplishments in a well-written, concise format. Smiley face bullet points are a no-no. Also, if I see that someone uses a “-” or “*” as a bullet point, I wonder if they know how to actually use the bullet point function on the computer,” said Jennifer Johnson, Founder of J. Johnson Executive Search, Inc.
- Misspellings or Grammatical Errors: Sara Sutton Fell said the first resumes that will be out of consideration will be resumes with any misspellings or grammatical errors.
- They Don’t Pertain to the Job Description: Especially those that show a conflicting mission or seem completely unrelated to the job, said Sutton Fell.
- Disregard for Instructions: Any applications that are submitted without following instructions and/or with information missing that was specifically requested will be passed over. “In my opinion, if it’s not worth it to you to do these things, you probably don’t have the type of professionalism and motivation that I am looking for,” said Sutton Fell.
