Hi everyone, this is Andy LaCivita, founder of milewalk and the milewalk Academy and award
winning author of The Hiring Prophecies, here with this week's episode for work and life.
I've got a great one to help you succeed in your careers.
It's all about getting your resume noticed and how to get it noticed in five seconds,
guaranteed.
This topic is so hot that I decided to wear my hot salmon colored top.
If you're watching me on the podcast, hope over to my blog or hop over to YouTube just
so I can brighten your day.
It is that hot.
It's really, really important that you get your resume noticed quickly.
Today what we're going to do is we're going to talk about, how do you get the resume noticed?
What's actually happening when someone opens your resumes, how they look at it?
How can you make sure that you're getting on top of them right away so that they recognize
this as something that they want to continue reading?
The third thing we're going to talk about is what not to do.
Just by way of background and just so you understand how many resumes I've actually
looked at in my life.
In my career, I have looked at more than a half a million resumes.
I'm not kidding.
How could something like that happen?
For decades, I have been recruiting and interviewing and hiring people at a high velocity.
Throw in, or maybe a not so thanks, to a great recession, but thanks to that great recession
a number of years back, I spent four entire years looking at about 1,500 to 2,000 resumes
a week.
Then we also have some great relationships with outplacement organizations that help
large organizations facilitate the exit of individuals.
Whenever they go into reduction and force or one of their clients goes into reduction
and force, they send us resumes by the thousands hoping we might be able to help them.
I do look at an awful lot of resumes, and in one of my earlier posts titled How to Fill
the Ultimate Professional Resume, I gave you what I thought was the ideal layout for your
resume, whether you're a professional or a college student.
Let's talk today about how do you make sure that that resume gets noticed right away?
You already understand how I've looked at so many resumes.
Now I want to talk to you about how long you have.
You've got about six seconds.
That's from my personal experience, looking at all of those resumes, that's about how
long it takes me to look at the entire resume and determine if I want to look at it.
If you don't want to take my word for it, there are many job sites like The Ladders
and Monster and others that year after year they interview, or they survey.
They're recruiters with the hirers and employers that are using their site.
They ask them, how long does it take you to analyze a resume?
Six seconds is the number, which means you have five seconds to interrupt that person,
to make sure that you get their attention and that they're noticing what you have.
That's how long you have.
How does somebody like me actually look at a resume?
What's actually happening in that six seconds?
First thing I do, and assuming for the most part, that somebody's going to be opening
your resume via email or a career portal, or something of that nature, up is going to
come the resume.
The first place my eyes go, so my first eye glance is at the top.
I'm looking at the top, center, I'm looking for your name.
I don't need to see a whole lot of other stuff.
I'd like to see your address because I'd like to know where you live, but I don't need to
see a whole bunch of letters and other hieroglyphics after your name.
That's just going to prohibit my ability to remember it.
The next thing that I do is I look, all at once, at the top half of the first page of
what should be a no longer than two page resume.
I look at the top half.
The whole top half.
I look at it all at once.
I'm looking for something in particular that I'll talk about in a couple of moments.
I look at the top half of the first page.
I don't read it.
I don't read it no matter what it says.
I just look at it.
Then what I do is I go down the left column and I start to look for which organizations
or which companies you've worked for.
I care way more about the companies you worked for than the particular positions that you've
held within them.
I want to look for super bowlers, people that have played on a super bowl team that have
got good pedigree, that have been well trained.
I care more about the company.
If I have to look for it, that frustrates me, so I go down the left column.
Then what I do is I go to the next page and I look at the entire second page all at once
only to let myself know, I'm really looking for just what's on the page.
Is it a little more work history, is it your education, is it your volunteer programs or
activities or other credentials or boards you sit on, or whatever it might be.
That's what I do.
I look at the name at the top.
I look at the top half of the resume all at once.
Then I go down the left column, I look for the organizations.
Then I look at the whole second page all at once.
Beyond that I won't look.
If you have third page, it's just going to upset me.
It frustrates me because you don't respect my time.
That's actually how I feel.
Now that you understand how I look at the resume.
Now, all of that took me about six seconds.
It really took me about six seconds.
If the resume's shorter, it might even take me less time.
That's all it takes.
Now I have to decide, what am I going to do?
Based on what information you have there will tell me whether or not I want to read more.
When I think about why did you open this blog post?
There's probably one of two reasons.
You either know me and love me and said, "Oh my god, Andy's got another great post or article
or video or whatever, I'm going to have to click it just because I want to read everything
he writes," or, more likely, you have no idea who I am, and you're thinking, "Based on the
headline, wow, this guy is promising me resume glory in five seconds.
I'm going to check it out."
There was a headline that got your attention that caused you to click that caused you to
get here.
You're resume, assume that you have to do the same thing with your resume, so where's
the headline go?
At the top of the front page.
It's the first thing that they're going to see.
You need to, in a few seconds, entice them to want to read more.
That's the real estate that's the most prime.
You've got to show them how you add value, how you can add value to their life, how you
can add value to their company, where it is that you've been, what it is that you've done,
all at the top.
The easiest way to do that is just like I instructed, in How to Build the Ultimate Professional
Resume, if you want to look at that, it's in the notes.
I tell you exactly what you have to put up there.
Two great things, a career profile that in aggregate shows your entire career in a paragraph
or two.
The second thing is, your career highlights.
What value you've contributed and how an organization, a customer base, or somebody of people or
groups has improved because of what you've done.
I'm not going to go into all the details.
The important message that I want you to understand is, at the top, the top half of the front
page, that's where you put the career profile and the career highlights.
I promise you that, if done well, and if you do them in accordance with how I instructed
in How to Build the Ultimate Professional Resume, you'll have the right language.
They'll be enticed.
What that will do is it will help you share with them immediately who you are.
You'll give them a picture of you in their mind and you'll avoid some things I don't
want you to do.
There are three really big don'ts.
You know, as I mentioned, this is the most prime real estate that you have to entice
the employer to keep reading.
Do not, under any circumstances, put an objective statement.
An objective statement is what you want.
Not what you offer.
Don't waste any of your prime real estate on the resume in those few precious seconds
that you have, telling them what you want.
Tell them what you offer.
The second thing that I see a lot of people do that wastes tons of real estate is putting
a laundry list of skills.
At first off, putting a laundry list of skills is bad, but if you put a laundry list of skills
that are really, really generic like leadership, project management, detail oriented, hard
working, good communication skills, no one cares about those.
That is your opinion of yourself.
What you need to do is you need to make sure that you're stating facts and evidence of
why you are as awesome as you are.
The person who's looking at the resume isn't going to take your word for it.
They want to see some hard evidence, at least on paper, of what you bring to the table.
Don't waste any of that up front area talking about these generic skills.
If you have some really discreet skills that are really, really good, they're certifications,
they're training programs, things of that nature, just put them at the bottom of your
resume on the second page.
It's a great spot for them.
Just make sure that they're something really worth putting in and not these really generic
labels that you can actually talk about in a more concrete fashion throughout the resume.
The third thing, if you are a professional, and when I say professional, I mean you've
been working for longer than 24 hours, don't put your education at the top.
Put your education at the bottom.
The moment you have your first job and you are working, you're now a pro.
Take that education, move it to the bottom of the resume, wherever that might be, bottom
of the first page, bottom of the second page, middle of the second page, doesn't matter,
but put the education there.
Education is great, but we don't want you consuming the top portion of the resume, the
most prime real estate with education unless you are a college student.
I also talk about collegiate resumes and all that stuff.
It's also in the body and in the notes.
I hope that really helps.
You want to make sure, the moral of the story is, you want to make sure that you're taking
the top half of the front of your resume and putting in a career profile that's an aggregation
of who you are and what you've done, as well as three major valuable contributions, the
ones you're most proud of, up at the top.
Like I said, I instruct exactly how to do that in How to Build the Ultimate Professional
Resume.
Couple other quick things.
If you really, really want more resume help, in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to
be doing an hour long resume on how to write the perfect resume.
Depending on when you're watching this or when you're seeing this, it might already
be out.
The second thing is, I've got a great job interviewing webinar.
It's free.
It's live.
This job interviewing webcast is called Three Keys to Ace Your Job Interview.
It's fantastic.
We've been running some sessions so far.
That's in the notes on how to sign up.
Lastly, if you enjoyed this, please share it or give me some comments on the blog or
on the social feeds.
Always love to hear from you.
Until next time, have a good one.