Your resume has only five seconds to make a first impression!

In a flash, a skillful recruiter will decide whether or not your resume gets past the initial screen to be considered for a management position.  What exactly is it that they see in five seconds?

• A quick assessment of your current employer, title, responsibilities, and whether you have been there long enough to live with your decisions.
• The total number of employers you have led in the past 10 years.
• Whether you advanced within each company and/or progressed  to the next for greater responsibilities. (i.e. Have you had 10 years of experience or one year of experience 10 times?)
• The degrees and licenses you have acquired.

Within this five-second window, the recruiter will also make a judgment of how pleasing your resume is to the eye.  Is it clear and crisp with appropriate margins and spacing, or is it an unnecessarily long, rambling list of job responsibilities at each company, absent of results you achieved?

After the five-second screen, if the recruiter decides you are worth a second look, what happens next?  See our next post on securing an in-person interview next Thursday.