Ensure your CV impresses in the first six seconds

You spend a long time keeping your resume up to date, and then more time tailoring it for a specific job application. But did you know that whether your resume gets past an initial selection depends on it delivering key information to the reader within six seconds? 


This new evidence of the importance of a resume's first impressions comes from a recent American report that used eye tracking technology to examine how recruiters make decisions. The recruiters in this research are professionals, and hiring managers probably spend less time, and give up more easily, if the CV they are reading does not deliver evidence of a match to the job requirements in an even shorter time than six seconds.


What is the reader looking for in your resume in the critical first six seconds? The main information the recruiter wants to read is:
  1. Name
  2. Current position title, organisation and dates of appointment
  3. Previous positions, organisations and dates of appointment
  4. Education or qualifications
If the reader proceeds to explore your resume further, they are mainly skimming for keywords that suggest fit with the position you are being considered for.


During the vital six seconds, readers are distracted by:
  1. photos
  2. clutter
  3. lack of clear layout or hierarchy


The lessons here are:
  1. reduce the cognitive load on your reader, 
  2. deliver the key facts in a clear and easily assimilable way, and
  3. speak the language of your target audience - use the same keywords in your resume, plus
  4. take out unnecessary information that could waylay your reader


The report I cite here is promoting a professional resume re-writing service but that is not only unnecessary but can prove counter productive anyway. I will explain why not to use a resume re-writing service in my next post.

Tips for new year career planning

As you settle back into work for the new year, it is a good time to take stock on your career direction. By mentally preparing yourself for the right opportunities you will be better able to identify those opportunities, and to take them. Here are some simple steps in career planning.

1. Consider good moments in your career

Who was there to share those moments to to help make them happen? Send them new year greetings. Invite them to have a coffee to catch up. Talk to them about the career highlight you share, ask them to relive it from their perspective.

2. How can you plan to have more good career moments?

Think about what was enjoyable about these times. Find adjectives to describe the key feelings and cognitive processes involved. Recall what happened, the steps involved. What did you do to make it happen? What skills or experiences did you use? Did these career moments rely on a particular environment? How could you make similar situations happen again? What skills or experiences may you need to acquire? 

3. What are your obstacles to achieving more of these great moments in your career?

Are they truly insurmountable, or are you holding yourself back? Discuss this with a trusted friend or your partner, and get their view.

4. Now you have remembered your career highlights, do not forget them!

In situations when you need confidence or a boost, spend five seconds remembering those times in your career when you excelled. Recreate in your mind and body how good it felt! This will inspire you to have confidence in yourself and to pursue greater career potential.

5. Set three objectives to help realise more career highs

Just three, and check in on them at Easter, in the new financial year and again in September. Maybe set one objective per trimester. Your objectives should seek to rebuild, or capture, outstanding career moments.

How to gear up your career in the new year

A new year gives the opportunity to reflect on where we want to be and set strategies for achieving our potential.    The following tips don't take much time and will give high returns in putting you in control of your career and opening greater opportunities. 


Check your public profile
Google yourself. What comes up? Do the search results capture your achievements so that a search specialist, like me, will be able to find you for a position that matches your capabilities? If they do, well done and go to my next tip.


If your public profile does not showcase your potential, here's what to do. 


1. Create a profile. 
This should be on your staff page if you are at a university or college, or in an online community relevant to your specialisation, such as the following networks: 
http://academia.edu/
http://www.researchgate.net/

Also create a profile on LinkedIn 


Already have these profiles? Update them. 


My next post will cover more items for your career management new year's check up.