Your Resume has 6 seconds to make an impression, does it make the cut?

Ever wonder how much time a recruiter spends reading a resume? It takes 5-7 seconds for recruiters to decide if they want to continue looking at your CV before moving on to the next one. Talk about a short time to make an impression!

We can always debate it is not so for senior roles and so forth, but let’s digest the fact that we are trying to make an impression in 6 seconds!!

Refine and make it concise

How can one successfully get noticed in such a short time? Here’s a hint – it is certainly not by copying and pasting! It could be by editing and subtracting, refining rather than adding. Copying can be good to get inspiration and ideas, but a better idea is to focus and highlight your skills and unique strengths, and yes each one of us has them! Think about those qualities, talk about it to your friends, team members and family to get a sense of what makes you stand out.

A resume is usually compact, compressed which reads like a summary. CV can be long, detailed, with credentials. BioData can be precise and specific. A good resume or CV is acceptable and certainly work well in any of the global employment markets.

Be Creative, think design, content and have a view of the entire picture

One can make an impression and can stand out in a crowd of resumes by being strategic, creative in highlighting few aspects that stand out. We live in a digital world, design thinking, visual design, aesthetics and quality of content all play a role in getting attention, we can start by trying the following, as a suggestion create a Word document by :

• Having a clear career objective, what kind of job or work would interest you

• Having a layout that looks methodical and well organized, a formatted document with your full name written prominently, providing easy access to your coordinates such as your phone number, email address, home address.

• Having the CV start with recent experience and flow in a reverse chronological order

• Having a clear precise summary of your experience in a few lines or short paragraph, being strategic in focusing on company brand, growth and accomplishments

• Having clearly mentioned the date and duration of employment with each company, educational qualifications, credentials, certifications received

• Having a pleasant visual appeal, strategic use of different colours for headings, use of graphs, charts and your formal photograph make it a call to action

• Having clearly listed out skills and competencies you have

• Having clearly show your achievements and rewards received, how you helped to make things better

• Have a section that shows you have an interesting life beyond work as well – hobbies, interests, volunteering

Overall your Resume should paint a picture of who you are as an individual, as a professional, with all your quirkiness and idiosyncrasies it would still show that you have an interesting personality.

Play to your strengths

A Recruiter glances through at least 2 hundred CVs a day, and CVs that get their attention are not your typical copy paste type. What is the Recruiter trying to figure out from your CV? Mostly they are trying to figure this :

• Can the team tolerate working with the candidate

• Does the candidate have the right educational qualification needed for the job

• Does the candidate have the relevant experience in previous roles doing a similar job

• What are the accomplishments of the candidate, awards received if any

• Does the candidate have the relevant skills and competencies to do the job effectively

• Is this candidate a good fit for the role - boss fit, role fit, company fit

By asking yourself these questions to yourself and doing as suggested previously in this article, perhaps you have a good chance to stand out, get noticed and most importantly it would help in creating a good CV.

CV as body of work

A well-written CV can make a good first impression. It may not guarantee you a job but would help to get you an interview, help in getting your foot into the door to an amazing opportunity. Without that CV, the chances were zero.

We evolve as individuals and professionals over the years, so it should not come as a surprise if we cannot relate to the old version of our resume, our old CV seems disappointing as we have evolved and progressed. As it is in life, we are constantly evolving, learning, growing and can say we are a work in progress. A good CV is an impressive body of work beyond the CV itself, always a work in progress. Keep creating! let it tell your story.