While planning to write a resume or working on one’s LinkedIn profile, the chief objective is, of course, getting into the heads of hiring managers. What could be the recruiters looking for? How could one optimize his resume enough to catch their attention?
Recent studies carried out in the context, cutting edge technological assistance revealed where the hiring managers mainly spent their time while hunting for resumes or LinkedIn profiles. A couple of things were confirmed by the study that was much heard of previously like the fact that hiring managers mostly spend just about six seconds on a profile. However, some fresh things were also discovered by the study on how to optimize online and offline resumes, to catch the eyes of a recruiter in the right way.
Here are three facts that were revealed by the study, which could really help in optimizing a resume par the recruiters’ expectations in 2019 job search.
1. A good profile picture is the first impression
Researches carried out recently in this context revealed that recruiters spent 19 per cent of their time on average, looking at a candidate’s profile picture. That says one need to make sure that his photograph tells the right story – one of his being a professional, great at work and likeable candidate. Extra care applied to the photograph chosen can do wonders. But no selfies shall be posted since their boisterous suggestion. Instead, the candidate needs to know what message his profile picture is sending to the recruiter.
2. Facts matter not keywords
The studies also showed that hiring managers predominantly spend almost 80 per cent of their time during reviewing resumes, at facts such as the name of the candidate, present firm and designation, previous firm and title, start and end dates and educational qualification. All the rest that the candidate thought would matter, were simply scanned for pertinent keywords.
What could one take from this trait of the recruiters? Well, there is no stringent obligation that descriptive text shall not at all be posted. Still one needs to make sure that his summary and experience parts are kept short, attractive and easy to read. A summary account can be called easy to read if it comes with bullets and free of mega blocks of text.
3. Being too creative can misfire
Finally, the researchers found that the hiring managers considered resumes that were professionally rewritten as more usable. They backed this view of theirs saying the organization, as well as visual hierarchy of such resumes, were more convenient to follow. The candidate’s shelling out money for professional services is not something seriously advised here, although this could be done if the person is not confident about his own skills in preparing a competent resume. Nevertheless, he needs to make sure that he has set his resume’s format in a relatively standard manner, making it more convenient for the hiring managers to find exactly what they were searching for, as soon as possible.