Your Resume at a Glance
We
would like to share some advice that we have given people about their
resumes to pass the “glance test”. As recruiters we look at resumes all
day long. Because we make our living matching talent to
incredible start-up companies, we pay extra attention to resumes and often dig
deep to make sure we don’t miss anything. However, many of the hiring managers
we work with are busy, incredibly busy! They are wearing many hats at any given
time and looking at a resume is just one of them. Imagine one of the hiring
managers finishing up a 12-hour day back at the office. All they want to do is go
home, they are tired and they still need to look at an inbox full of resumes.
The reality is that your resume may only get a glance from them. They may give
it just a few seconds to scan the first few jobs to see what you have to offer
them. You need to pass the “glance test”.
There
are three basic things I have found that must be addressed in your resume during
the glance test.
What
do you do?
Who
do you do it for?
How
do you get the job done?
Seems
basic right? You would be surprised how many resumes we see every day that do
not answer these three basic questions. We expect that you brag about your
relevant achievements and successes! There are many great articles written out
there on what to have in your resume, how to format your resume and more. All
of them are great and often give solid advice however these are the three
things we look for when reviewing a resume.
What
do you do? Don’t assume that a recruiter or hiring manager will know your
company or exactly what you did. Tell them. Do you work in sales, technology,
marketing, operations? What exactly do you do there? Work in a certain type of
engineering or with a certain sales or marketing software? Let us know and be
very specific.
Who
do you do it for? We are not asking you to give up your contacts on your
resume, but just like before, don’t assume anyone knows who your spectators are
for your job! Do you sell to C-level on the marketing side, how about the IT
side or even Line of Business, SMB, B2B, Corporate Accounts? Do you work with
and listen to the backend developers, the UX designers, the Full-stack
engineers, are you your own boss? Do you specialize in SEM, SEO, branding, B2B,
B2C, communicate with the growth manager or the marketing and operations
manager? Put it in the resume!
How
well do you get the job done? OK, let’s get real here. Every hiring manager we
have worked with has asked us to provide awesome talent. We’ve never once been
asked to find an average or below average performing person, not one time. It’s
OK to professionally brag about how good you are! Are you the top person at
your current organization? Out of many? Let us know. Are you above quota
quarter over quarter? What percentage? Are you increasing the awareness of your
social media? If so by how much? Have sales increased since you launched your
marketing campaign? What percentage have they increased? How long have you been
in the engineering industry? What languages have you worked with (programming
or coding)? Do you have any applications that you have built? How many have you
made? Give us some tangible metrics and let us know how good you are!
There
are many things to include in your resume, however in our experience,
addressing these three questions in your resume will help get you noticed!
