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.

How to perform better in job interviews: practice answering questions

I send my short listed candidates some questions they might be asked in their interview. This to start them thinking about how to describe their key achievements and qualities in a succinct way. Expect questions about how your skills and experience meet the selection criteria. Review the selection criteria several times, jot down some points next to each about what you’ve done that shows you meet each of them. Are there any parts of the job description, or areas in your CV that may be of concern to the panel? Think of what you can say that you will do to assuage any concerns. Remember to remain realistic and honest!

Don’t assume the panel are as familiar with your CV as you are! In the interview draw out the highlights from your CV that support your claims for this role.

Practice behavioural questions

Behavioural questions are extremely popular in interview and most of us aren’t good at answering them. 

The key to both types of questions is to have already thought of examples of what you have done, how you have handled conflict that provide evidence of how you would act in the role you are interviewing for. For my candidates I offer to conduct a mock interview and this further gets people thinking about how to better phrase their accomplishments in interview. It quells the nerves, too, as it makes behaving in an interview a more recent experience. It’s a bit like jumping into cold water before a race, so that the initial shock is already dealt with. Or, another analogy: remember a time when you got back onto a bike, or horse, when you had not ridden for a while? It can take some readjustment to find your comfort zone.

Even if you aren’t dealing with a supportive recruiter like me, practice into a mirror, with a friend or record your answers and play them back to see how you might improve. 

Remember you can pause and take notes

You may get asked a confusing or convoluted question. Or in your excitement, you get off track and you answer the wrong question. Jot down the key words of any slightly complicated question, and glance at them during your answer to make sure you cover all the points. Make sure when you finish to ask the questioner if you have answered their question, it’s possible they are nervous too and asked garbled question that didn’t serve their intentions.

How to perform better in job interviews: Other resources

If you are a few days before your interview, concentrate on these preparation tips so you don’t bewilder yourself. 

If you have some more time, check out my interview tips bookmark stack on Delicious: http://www.delicious.com/stacks/view/LWrehD 

And my company website: http://www.desailly.com.au 

And please drop me a line to let me know what works well for you!

How to be noticed for senior management positions in academe

Getting yourself noticed for senior management positions is not only important because you get to practise the skills required to succeed in such positions; if you aren't noticed you are likely to miss out on opportunities. Most people don't notice when these roles are advertised, and some -- especially women -- do not want to put themselves forward. For these reasons, it is vitally important to be noticed as a potential candidate, before your ideal role becomes available. 

Follow the points below and I may tap you on the shoulder about becoming an academic leader.

Be Seen

Create a LinkedIn profile and keep it up to date, it only takes a few minutes each month. If you're worried you will get unwanted approaches, shut them out in your settings. Keep your university staff page up to date and comprehensive. If your institution's systems make updating it too hard, create your own website, or blog. Don’t forget to add the links to your LinkedIn profile.

Be Known, and Well Regarded, as a Deft Administrator

If people notice you managing well, they are more likely to suggest you for a management role. Serving in Deputy or Acting positions is ideal, but these opportunities are few and can be hard to get. Consider other roles that will get your administrative skills noticed and valued by peers, such as editing a journal or becoming involved in a project. Showing your diplomacy, and your competence in getting things done to a level of excellence, not only earns respect from peers but impresses a selection panel.

In an upcoming post I will address the selection criteria used for academic leadership positions, following a research survey I am conducting of the higher education sector in Australia. In the meantime I will speak generally about the skills and experience required.

Acquire Relevant Skills and Experience

The ability to manage financial outcomes is increasingly important and yet many academics fall short in this vital area. Consider managing a conference or other event, and be able to talk about the financial outcomes (did it make money? how did you raise additional funds?). If you don't understand budgets at all, there are plenty of short courses designed for generalists.

Being able to manage change, is another capability of strong contenders for leadership. As change becomes the ‘new normal’ across campuses and disciplines, there are a great many change initiatives you can become actively involved in. Remember to be considered in your approaches and evaluate the impacts of your actions, so you can both articulate how you manage change and become at it. Being able to drive change in an area from the ground up is great for getting involved in your institution, in advocating for changes (both up and down), being good at consultation and building support for initiatives. 

Many successful academics do not want to serve in administration for their academic communities. It is true that management positions on campus today and leave little time for research or teaching; while a good track record in both these areas remain prerequisite to being considered. A desire for academic achievement through others, and through the sometimes exhausting processes of modern universities, is mandatory. And we do need more people willing and ready to step into these positions, with the respect and support of their colleagues, if we are to maintain the strength of our universities through the impending retirement of so many baby boomers currently in these roles. 

Why many academic job applications would be graded “F”

As a recruiter, I see too many poor quality applications for senior academic roles. These applications are written by intelligent people. Yet if the applicants were to mark their own applications as student assignments, they would have to fail them.

Here are three of the most common errors that would make a first year blush:

Not answering the question

In the case of a job application, this means addressing the selection criteria – both explicitly in a separate statement, and by tailoring your resume. Make sure your resume contains evidence for all the selection criteria, including outcomes of your achievements.

If you can’t find quantifiable evidence of your skills and knowledge against each and every selection criterion, then you probably don’t meet the job requirements. Reconsider whether you should submit at all, or instead turn the exercise into a gap analysis and work on an action plan to gain the skills or knowledge that you currently lack, for better success in future.

Poor presentation

Some applications seem to be the result of somnambulist writing. Rambling on, throwing in everything that the applicant has ever thought or done, in the hope that some of it will hit bullseye with the reader.  Remember the readers are looking for evidence against the selection criteria, and then they want to move on to the next stage in the process. Help them by putting forward your evidence, and not wasting their time by making them wade through 30 pages. And don’t forget basics like page numbering and consistent fonts.

Poor presentation includes sending your resume as a file called “My resume”. Name your file with the position number, or name, and your last name.

Late submissions

This one’s a doozy. Positions are generally open for applications for many weeks, sometimes months. If an applicant can’t get their application in on time, how does that look to the selection panel? And if there has been a search for the position and you haven’t been tapped by the headhunter, maybe you need to improve your profile (I’ll address how to do this in a follow up post).

Academics: next time you are preparing a job application, mentally get out your red pen and mark it like it’s a student’s assignment. Or I can help you – send it to me at rdesailly@gmail.com for an objective review.