Where Oh Where Did My Résumé Go?
/So you’re looking for a job and you want to do it right. You’ve read all the job searching blogs, learned to say you’re “in transition” rather than “looking for a job,” and read all the books on how to make a great résumé.
You’ve spent days (weeks?) honing and polishing your resume and now it shines in a way no recruiter or hiring manager could possibly ignore. You figure you’re as good as hired, right? All you’ve got to do is send that résumé out, then kick back and relax while you wait for the phone to start ringing off the hook. Then…CRICKETS
What happened? Didn’t they get your résumé? Why hasn’t anybody called?
Well, some people in the business decided to shed some light on the situation by sharing what they know, and it isn’t pretty.
While you spent countless hours writing your resume, the recruiter at the other end probably spend 5 to 7 seconds looking at it.
Why? Probably because they started receiving résumés 200 seconds after pressing the POST button on their system…followed by 249 more. Yup, an average of 250 résumés are received for every job posted. You’d better hope your résumé stands out — for the right reasons.
What to do
Here are some things you can do to tilt the odds in your favor:
- Use a professional email address. Keep that cute or clever email to use with your friends, and get a proper one to use on job applications. Something like firstname.lastname@gmail.com is probably a good bet.
- Keep the selfies to yourself. Resumes with a picture of the applicant on them are rejected 88% of the time.
- Watch what you say online. While your party antics or politically incorrect witticisms may make you the life of the party at home, they may just cost you a job. 1 in 3 employers have rejected candidates because of something they found about them online.
- Check your spelling and grammar. Then check it again. And again. And again. And…well, you get the idea. A single spelling of grammar mistake will cause your resume to be tossed without hesitation. Unreasonable? Probably. But hirers hold all the cards these days, so they don’t have to be reasonable. Best not to argue and make sure to dot your I’s and cross your t’s — so to speak.
Well there you have it. Now you know why that phone isn’t ringing. While the odds are stacked against you, at least you know the facts and can take action to minimize the odds of your résumé residing in the round file.
Good luck with your search — ummm, I mean — your transition.
