From time to time, I've brought this secret up. Occasionally, it bears repeating. The biggest dirty secret is that hiring executive hate reading résumés. ... Really. They roll their eyes just thinking about it!
The degrees of disdain vary depending on how many they have to cull through. A dozen each month—not so much. Let that swell to hundreds, and tolerance levels dwindle proportionately. At the upper range, executives develop selective reading prejudices.
What does that mean for John Q Jobseeker hoping to garner an interview? It means that the home-crafted résumé you emailed is not necessarily the one received. The résumé gets scan read and mentally filtered. Hence, a selective read.
Here is a reoccurring scenario: Twenty-five emailed résumés arrive. Rather than scrutinize each on arrival, busy employers allow them to accumulate. The moment they have a break, they take a deep breath, self-vow to keep an open mind, and then proceed to plow through them—close to Roadrunner speed—minus the humor element.
After the first few, the pace quickens. As valuable time elapses, the procedure morphs into page glancing. Foggy details get brushed aside while the reader scans for any relevant experience, job titles and education.
The reader’s mind glazes over. In what amounts to a snapping of the fingers, the following conclusions are drawn:
- · A “busy” or “cluttered” résumé is perceived as someone unorganized.
- · A lengthy résumé gets processed as a jobseeker full of oneself.
- · A vague résumé is flagged as a jobseeker that has something serious to hide.
- · A résumé reading like a job application is tagged do-you-have-a-job-for-me.
- · An overly fancy, razzle-dazzle résumé is judged a class-A bull-shitter.
- · An overly detailed résumé is interrupted as tedious, pedantic or anal.
- · An error-ridden résumé is tagged as a careless and unqualified applicant.
From the jobseekers' perspective, this may appear hard, cold and uncaring. From the busy executive's perspective, it is an unwelcomed, time-consuming, mind-numbing chore. The concise and easy get plucked for later review. A qualified résumé writer avoids these classic pitfalls. Everyone else needs to rely on Tarot cards, outdated résumé books, winning the lottery, or their Aunt Bea’s HR connections. That, however, is no dirty little secret.
Copyrighted © 2013 by Robert James