Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter discusses what recruiters look for and don’t look for when they scan resumes. This is from the archives (2014). I no longer do recruiting and stop doing it more than 5 years ago. Any jobs mentioned during the show was filled long ago.
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I was away for a few days, came back last evening. I’ve quickly scrambled to finish off my prep work for this show.
So what I decided to do is review an article I read that had was apparently an answer to a question on Quora. If you’re not familiar, that’s a service, Q-U-O-R-A. Quora is a site where you can ask questions and people can provide answers to you.
And the question that was posed is, when recruiters look through a stack of resumes for candidate screening, what is the vital information that they focus on? Now, there was an answer offered by Amber Benjamin, an engineering recruiter at Facebook who was previously with LivingSocial, Google and Expedia. It’s a great answer, very detail oriented. You can find it on Quora, if you like, but I’m going to kind of summarize it for you.
Because, fundamentally, I think she covers a lot of the points that . . . I believe it’s a she and I apologize if it isn’t. Amber covers a lot of the points that I would cover in answering that question. So I just thought I would offer the answer that’s posed in a summary form.
One thing Amber mentioned is the most recent role someone has. So, generally looking to . . . what she says is, I’m generally trying to figure out what this person’s current status is, and why they might even be interested in a new role. Have they been laid off? Did they get fired? Have they only been in their role for a few months? Is this their most recent experience? Is their most recent experience relevant to the position for which she’s hiring? Then, this brand name recognition, which is company recognition.
She refers to herself as a company snob. I just look for, is the company one that has a brand that the market responds to well? Is there a career progression that this person has had? Do they have increasing levels of responsibility? Do their titles make sense? Do the responsibilities and, of course, experience reflect what she’s looking for? In doing a keyword search, I get a ton of resumes that, in no way, shape or form, indicate that this person has the skills that I’m looking for for this client. A program manager has never managed a program a day in their life.
A Java developer, the term Java doesn’t appear in their resume or a Ruby developer and Ruby is a course when we’re looking for someone with several years of experience. These are all things that we, as recruiters, tend to look at gaps in the background. Explanations come in handy.
So, for example, because the way the world is, women often take time off for the birth of a newborn. They’ll begin the process of raising a child. And is there an explanation of that? Did you start a company? Did it fail? If there’s some sort of an explanation for what happened to you, that’s a huge help.
Do you have a web presence? And, you know, for example, you know, if you include links to your Twitter feed, GitHub, Dribbble account, or something that reflects things that you do outside of work, I think it’s a huge help when looking at a resume. For some reason, I believe it’s because of concern about identity theft, people have removed where they live from from their resume. Now, that isn’t necessarily bad.
But as I’ve done videos about and talked about for many years now, I’m using this as an example. If you live in New York and you’re applying for a position in Chicago, for the sake of argument, and you have a New York phone number, and that’s all that’s there on the resume. Actually, let me restate that.
If you live in and are looking for a job in New York, but you moved to New York and you have a Chicago phone number, employers don’t know that you’re in New York. So you have to make it clear that you’re someone who’s in New York. So, definitely include your address to demonstrate that you’re in the general location.
Your residency status, if you’re someone who has an H1B or an F1 visa, don’t you think we’re going to ask about and all you’re doing is wasting your time? You know, spellcheck your resume and look for terms that, if misspelled, could still be a word that would go through the spellchecker. It doesn’t really take long to do this kind of assessment. When all is said and done, Amber says it takes her less than 30 seconds.
Yeah, I would concur. I think definitely less than 30 seconds. I think in one of my podcast shows on Job Search Radio, I said five to six seconds for me.
She takes longer. I do look at education. She really doesn’t.
Maybe it’s the nature of the position she recruits for. But I like to see people with a quality school that they always are better than a school that I’ve never heard of or perceived better by my clients. If they’ve worked for a university that has a brand to it as well.
Formatting. Let’s not get crazy about formatting. You know, she speaks about for certain types of positions.
She loves Pinterest. You know, what I generally think of is that resumes that are sent to me as PDFs can be problematic for when I massage them later on. Just make a resume in Word.
Do not use templates. They are a pain to look at. They’re a pain to massage. What I tend to do is I look at the emailand nd if you want to send me something along those lines
Applicant tracking systems don’t like them to be blunt about it. And all you’re doing is causing difficulty. Do you have . . . well, something else I don’t really pay attention to are the personal reasons, the personal details.
Sometimes people throw in marital status or that they have had . . . they’ll include a photograph, which are rarely good photographs. They attach a cover letter to a resume. And, frankly, attached cover letters are never open.
, I will read the body of your email, and then open the attachment of the body of the email tells me, I really want to do this job. I’ve never done work like this before.
What Recruiters Look For and Don’t Look For When They Scan Resumes
I’m never going to open the resume because my clients pay me to find people with specific experience, not people who want to do this job. So, recognize that time is precious for everyone. Now, she talks about some things that she doesn’t like.
And I already mentioned resume templates. They are annoying, and they are ugly, and they are a pain. So, digital templates, just type it.
If you like what that template carries, great. But just use Word to create your resume following that template and format. Ridiculous number of pages she refers to.
I feel the same way. If you’re in consulting, for example, and you have you have an eight to nine page resume, a six page resume, you can edit it down. I don’t care how many assignments you’ve had during your career.
Edit it down. No one cares about what you did five plus years ago. Emphasize the more recent work.
Minimize the older work. If you are hired based upon work that you did five or six years ago, I would be shocked. As a result, don’t waste my time.
And I think she believes so, as well. Objectives, get rid of them. All they do is help you disqualify yourself.
Although some of my guests on job search radio talk about the advantages of mailing a resume or a value proposition letter. She hates them. I hate them, too.
Don’t bother. In her case, I’m sure one of the issues . . . well, I know it’s true in my case, as well. We can’t parse the resume into our system.
Yes, I could scan it. I could create a PDF out of what you send me. I’m not going to do it.
Thus, it’s going right into my garbage. She also talks about exaggerated titles are things that she can’t stand. And I agree with her.
Because the fact of the matter is, people find out. You think we’re not going to check a reference? You think we’re not going to look into your background and find out what the truth is? Of course, we are. And the reality is, once we find out that you lied to us, it’s like a Godfather movie.
You’re dead to me. You’re dead to me. I’m never going to pay attention.
I’m sure the same is true of her, too. So at the end of the day, honesty is of huge importance. Presenting your background in a way that recruiters will find appealing, understandable, reflects your background well and accurately are all very important.
And if you ignore these things, all that invariably happens is your resume is not going to get the result that you want. You need to work with us as recruiters, whether it’s corporate or third party, to market yourself in ways that will be effective for you. You know, this article that Amber wrote, which is on Mashable, and I believe it’s entitled, let me get you the title for this.
Eight things recruiters notice about your resume at first glance and four things that don’t matter. Again, I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I hope you have a great day and I hope you have a great week and I’ll see you soon.
Thank you for joining me today. I’m Jeff Altman. I hope you have a great day and I hope you have a great week and I’ll see you soon.
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