What Do Potential Employers Really Want In A Resume?

When you write your resume, you are focused on putting your skills and attributes down on paper, in a way that communicates clearly to a potential employer. When a potential employer reads your resume, though, they are looking for something different.

The screener's job

The job of a resume screener, whether that person is a human resources specialist or the hiring manager, is to ascertain which resumes represent candidates who meet minimum requirement and set those aside for more in depth consideration. As they examine a resume more closely they are looking for holes in the content, trying to decide if it is worth the time and effort to bring you in for an interview. They are looking for fabrications, exaggerations, and embellishments, anything that will give them some indication that you are not the person you purport to be in the resume.

The first screening

In most cases, the first reading of your resume will not be a thorough reading, but instead a quick overview of the highlights to determine if you have the basic qualifications for the open position. The HR specialist or hiring manager will look for the required training, experience, or other attributes that the hiring manager has determined are critical.

You can increase the likelihood of making it past this first reading by laying out your resume with key qualifications listed first. You can use bold or italic type to make important statements stand out, but be careful not to overdo it. The effectiveness of bold or italic type diminishes as you use it more, so make sure that you emphasize only the most important elements. This will draw the reader's eye to them and make it more likely that your resume will pass the first screening.

The second screening

Once the pile of resumes is reduced thanks to the first screening, the reader will go back and look at the surviving documents in more detail. This screening is generally more detailed and more in depth, looking for incongruence and inconsistently. The reader is looking for your current position, the functions you are capable of performing, past experience, and any current expertise that is noteworthy.

You can increase the likelihood of making it past the second screening and into the interview round by making this information as easy to find as possible. It is also important to express these details in terms of how you fit into what the employer wants and needs, not how the employer fits into what you want and need.

Be specific about your actions and the results you have achieved. Provide facts and figures, easily understandable measurements that quantify objectives and goals you have met. Avoid flowery words that do not speak directly to your accomplishments and eliminate unnecessarily complex words. Do not hide behind ineffective descriptions because these do not mean anything to a resume screener.

 

 

 

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