The Meat of the Resume

If you’ve listed a job opening anywhere in the last two months, you’ve undoubtedly had your inbox deluged with applications. It’s a daunting task to undertake evaluating them all.

A recent study found the HR professionals only need to spend 15 seconds on the initial resume review.  You’re probably thinking, “great, but I’m not a HR professional. I’m just a small business owner.” That doesn’t mean you can’t learn to quickly peruse the resumes by learning what to ignore.

First, skip the cover letter altogether because that’s more of an endgame document rather than the kickoff to the process. It’ll help more in the final decision process than it will in the initial perusal. Then, don’t look at the name at the top of the page. It’s not important unless the rest of the resume passes muster.  Next, just look to see if they have the appropriate degree you’ve required, don’t concern yourself where the degree is from; that will come into play during the second review. Awards and achievements? Don’t bother with them. They’re best for when you’re really trying to narrow the list down during the third round.

What’s that leave you? The real meat of the resume, the work history. It only takes a few seconds to read this section and discern if this person has the right experience for the advertised position. Even if the person has an entire page of work history, you can reasonably get through it in less than a minute – and only 15 seconds if you scan it quickly.

It may seem counterproductive to not give each resume a thorough review, but when you consider that time is money, and you’re burning through it every extra minute you spend on this task, it seems worth it.