What recruiters look at during the 6 seconds that they spend on your resume/CV

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There is a well-known saying that recruiters take 60 seconds to decide whether your resume/CV deserves more attention or whether it simply deserves to be put in the rejection bin.

Of course, most candidates would love to know exactly what critical information recruiters are looking at during that crucial 60 seconds. While there has been a lot of anecdotal evidence relating to what recruiters look for in a resume/CV (much of which is acted on by resume/CV writers), until now there has not been much research-based evidence.

Well, fortunately for candidates, earlier this year TheLadders conducted a study of 30 professional recruiters and monitored their eye movements over a 10 week period, using a scientific technique called’ eye tracking’.

The study involved recording and analyzing where and how long the recruiter focuses when assessing a CV/Resume for suitability for a job. There were several critical findings from the survey, which may help you to design better resumes/CVs and these are shown below.

1. Recruiters spend only 6 seconds reviewing an individual resume, despite therecruiters reporting that they spend longer.
2. The ‘gaze tracking’ technology used in the survey shows that recruiters spent nearly 80% of their time reviewing the following information.
   • Name
   • Current title/company
   • Previous title/company
   • Previous position start and end dates
   • Current position start and end dates
   • Education
3. Decisions were very much based on these 6 data points (shown above) and the “resume/CV detail and explanatory copy” had “little to no impact on the initial decision making process.
4. The study also revealed that recruiters spend about 6 seconds making their initial “fit/no fit”decision.

Optimizing Your Resume/CV

The two key insights from the survey, which can help candidates to better optimize their CV were to: “have an organized layout”, and “have a strong visual hierarchy”. Since many recruiters use hiring software to short-list candidates you’ll need to develop an ATS friendly resume to maximize your chance of getting noticed. You can find an excellent resume-example here.

I’d like to expand on this with several of my own suggestions that can help recruiters get to the key information that they are looking for quicker.

1. Prepare a tabulated personal data summary for the top of your resume/CV which summarizes the 6 key elements of data. (I do this when I prepare professional resume/CVs)
2. Ensure the sections of your resume/CV, e.g. profile, key skills, professional experience and education are well delineated and each heading is in bold so recruiters can easily navigate your resume/CV
3. Ensure that your job titles are clearly highlighted, either in bold or underlined.

You can Download a recruiter optimized CV or Resume here.