Why Your Resume Is Getting Rejected in Seconds

This week, Jeff and I are talking about how professional recruiters review resumes. It is almost IMPOSSIBLE to know what a recruiter is actually thinking when they look at your resume, but we’re pulling back the curtain on how hiring decisions are made and even walking through a live review to help you feel confident and prepared.

This week, Jeff and I talk about:

• The 10-second resume scan
• Common design and branding pitfalls
• How to use "bullet point titles" for maximum impact
• Transferable skills during career transitions
• Showcasing evidence through results and metrics
• Moving from the "maybe" pile to the "yes" pile
• Strategic professional development placement
• What recruiters prioritize behind the scenes

Listen in to help us, help you give yourself the best chance of landing your Next Job… NOW :)

Download my FREE Job Search Starter Pack:
https://greglangstaff.kit.com/free-resources

Greg’s FREE Resume Writing Course is available here: 

https://youtu.be/z9oEbG1GhqM?si=qOCB3yLLnETzFEJY

Greg’s Resume WRITING Services can be found here: 

https://greglangstaff.com/must-hire-packages  

Greg’s Resume REVIEW Services can be found here: 

https://greglangstaff.com/resume-linkedin-reviews

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the podcast. I'm Greg Langstaff. I'm a certified resume strategist. I've written over 2,000 resumes, and I love helping people get new jobs.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

And I'm Jeff, and I have a lot of questions about job searching. On this episode, we are talking about reviewing resumes. How resumes are reviewed by both Greg and HR professionals, what drives decisions to determine who gets the interview. And Greg's actually going to walk us through a resume review. When you review someone's resume, what are you looking at?

SPEAKER_01 0:53

When I'm looking at a resume to actually evaluate if someone is good, if it's a good resume, I'm looking at a few things. So I want to see like, have they clearly defined who they are, what they bring to the table with like a professional brand, including like a title they've given themselves, some key skills, maybe some nice career highlights that show a couple of your best accomplishments. And then I'm looking at like, are the jobs you've done relevant to what you're trying to do? And have you described those in a way that shows me what you did in each job and that you were good at those things? How long does it take you to actually determine those things? Like, how long does it take me, uh a resume strategist who's been in hiring for like 15 years? Exactly. How long does that take you? It takes 10 seconds.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

10 seconds per resume.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah, like that thing that people say about how a resume is only viewed for 10 seconds, like that's enough. Yeah. We've looked at enough resumes, it's pretty clear if this person is worth actually considering in 10 seconds.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

So walk me through that 10 seconds really fast of you grab a resume, what are you looking at to determine this is going in the maybe pile, the yes pile, or this this person's not qualified at all? It's gone.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

So in the 10-second scan, I'm looking first at job titles, companies, and durations. Like, have you worked a relevant job long enough that I could trust you to do this job? Then I'm gonna read some of the bullet points that you included under that job to see if you have any evidence that you were good. Did were you achieving your goals? Were you outperforming your targets? Like that's the kind of stuff that's gonna impress me. And I'm also gonna look at what key skills you've mentioned. I'll look at kind of how you've titled yourself and the layout to see if you tried hard at putting together like a nice looking resume. Those are the things in the first 10 seconds. If you get past that, I'm gonna actually read it carefully and you're gonna be in my top like 10 people.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Do you think you could find the top two, top one candidate in a stack of resumes? I probably. Is this why you needed to use my printer this morning? This is why I needed to use your printer. Okay. Okay, let's do it. Let's see. Let's take a look at some resumes. So, Greg, you're hiring uh for a social media data analyst position.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Very exciting. And you had a lot of applications.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

That's like 12, 15 resumes in your hand right now.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

15?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah. That was a good guess.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Um, so you got 15 resumes. There are some solid ones, um, but you know, a lot of a couple people did use Easy Apply, I will admit. Okay. Um, so I'm gonna give you this, and I think that you could, I guess, my guess is that it's gonna take you 28 seconds to look at all 15 to find the top candidate.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

All right. Should we time?

SPEAKER_01 3:52

I'm no. Okay, the first one I know at the top, I know we haven't started, but the one at the top of the stack is an immediate no. Talk to me. Okay, wait. I picked up on it. Wait, why? Why is that an immediate no? It's a very nicely designed resume, but right at the top it says like senior systems integration manager. You just said we're hiring for social media. The jobs, the jobs are system integration lead, aerospace systems engineer. Like, I don't need to read this. This is not a social media resume. This person applied by mistake. This is gonna take you much faster. Well, maybe not. All right, are you ready? I you know what? It's the dexterity of moving through the pieces of paper you handed me.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Yeah, this is why I had to give you physical versus digital.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Okay. All right, okay. On your marks, go. Okay, that one was a no as discussed. This one's a senior systems integration manager as well. No. This is a cover letter for a digital marketing specialist. I don't want to put that in the maybe pile. Inside sales leader. Yeah, the professional titles are just off. Okay, this one right at the top, social media data analyst. That's their current job title. They've been a project manager, which has had some marketing stuff as well. That's going in the maybe pile. This person's a project manager, uh, job titles operations assistant. I'm not seeing any social media in any of their bullet points, so no. Uh, this is Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s resume. He is too busy for this. Um, this one is an operations leader, VP of no, we can't hire a V someone of VP experience for social media coordinator. Um, digital marketing data analyst, social media coordinator. Okay, those job titles are relevant. That's going in the maybe pile. Nutrition specialist, no. Data analyst, social media expert, but they've been a sales executive. Uh, it's gonna go in the probably not pile. Um, okay. This person is the VP of strategic operations, no. Senior sales executive. Uh, I'll give them a chance. Uh no, I'm not seeing any social media, no. Um, this is the same one from the beginning of the pile. They applied, they applied twice. Okay. Okay, so I got two maybes and then a cover letter. Social media data analysts. So that like if you want to know how the process works, like we wouldn't blitz read these two nice, like relevant resumes. This is the part where I would take like five, ten minutes and read every single word on these to decide if I want to spend a couple hours interviewing these people.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

And these are your top two. Yeah. Yeah. That was spot on.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

Very good.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

And what I hope people learn from this exercise is how fast the recruiters are actually taking a look at this.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yeah, and if I could just say something like that, this is a tactic we we teach in all of our like resume writing courses in in like job search institute and everything. It's like one thing that's super helpful, and I didn't even realize it in action until we did this, but like one of the most helpful things you can do on your resume is give your bullet points like little titles like this. Because as I was taking two, three seconds to scan through each of these, I looked at job title, and if the job title was like even somewhat relevant, I quickly look at these bullet point titles to see if there's anything social media related. If I'm hiring for a social media role, but that applies to anything, and I can read that bullet point specifically and think, okay, this person deserves a chance.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

What a great activity. Thanks, Jeff. Oh, thank you. So let's talk a little bit about compatibility versus matching the job. What is more important on our resume? To be perfectly matched, a social media data analyst, or is it to show my compatibility? We threw away the sales, even though maybe that sales could have been transferable, but they didn't make that clear.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Yeah. I mean, you you want to show like transferable skills if you're trying to stretch and apply to something new. But even more important than that is like you need to show you're committed to this new direction if you're making a change. This is why we always say, like, if you want to go another direction, the best way to show compatibility and commitment to that new direction is to take some sort of professional development. Like, take a course, go back to school, do a certificate program, something so that they can see like you are serious about this new direction, and also give you some skills to uh to speak to in your resume and in an interview as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

So let's talk about now that you're going to sit down with those two resumes, you've identified your top two candidates. Do I need them back? No, it's okay. Okay, so you have your your top two candidates. What's going to be the decision maker? Let's say you only have one interview slot in this hypothetical.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I'm only interviewing one person?

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah, you're taking based on this resume for this activity. Oh, and picture this that you already have 10. This is the last round of oh, the final slot. This is the final slot.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

How what's your decision making for yourself, but also for normal, like corporate uh hiring managers and uh HR?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

So this is kind of the question of how you go from the maybe pile to the yes pile for an interview. Yes. I should say 95% of people aren't gonna get to the maybe pile, which leaves about 5% of applicants, but only like 2% of applicants are gonna get an interview. So if these folks, these two resumes you handed me are in the maybe pile, I am gonna start. I'm gonna look a lot closer. I'm probably gonna read every single word. I'm gonna think about some of the accomplishments that they've described in their bullet points. Like this person, it's very nice to see that they have numbers that showcase that their oh, click-through rate was above average, uh, improved reporting turnaround times 45%. Like, that's nice. Um, so I'm looking at accomplishments, I'm also looking at the subject matter they're covering. Like, if I need someone who can not only analyze my social media but develop dashboards, if that's a core function I know I'm gonna assign to this person, this person is the edge because they've done dashboard development, um, content optimization. If campaign testing is a priority, both of them have experience doing that, and they've both mentioned um, they've both mentioned like results that have come from that. So yeah, it's it's just like showing them you've done the the things that they want you to do and kind of getting lucky that the things that they are most prioritizing are things you've done as well. Because job descriptions aren't amazing at showing you like what's at the top of their list versus like something that's just kind of an extra additional thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Okay, let's take the rest of this episode to do a very quick two to three minute resume review of a resume that I've drafted. You can provide some authentic on-the-spot feedback. Okay, and this is how at home you can kind of review your resume and follow along to see how you've done the same thing. I will also put this up.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Okay. And for those watch uh listening, uh check us out. This is an episode you could probably enjoy on YouTube. So head over to our YouTube channel, NextJob Now uh podcast, and uh subscribe and watch this one on video, or at least the last couple minutes. Uh okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Okay, walk me through reviewing my resume.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

So the first half second is just to take in the visual appearance. Very nicely organized. This is a very good looking resume template. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I like it a lot. Um, okay. Next, I'm looking right next to your name, you've given yourself a nice professional title. Digital Marketing Analytics Expert and Content Performance Specialist. Now, if I'm hiring for any of those things, digital marketing, marketing analytics, content, performance, amazing. That's now I'm interested. I feel like I've picked up the right resume, you've applied to the right job. I'm gonna consider you. Career highlights section. Um, you've got, let's see, you've highlighted three things performance analysis, marketing, marketing data reporting, cross-functional collaboration. I don't like these at all. Here's why. Okay. You have for performance analysis, you have just given me then like a one-sentence definition of what performance analysis is. Right. You have not indicated that you've done this or in which environments you've done it, or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Um, what should it look like?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

You should be describing that you have four years experience analyzing marketing performance, which has generated like a X percent increase in engagement or in in followers or something. If it's a highlight, like tell me what you did and how that helped your employers.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Marketing data reporting. This one's closer, but um same kind of problem. It's it we did say we developed dashboards, and it's kind of just a definition. So again, I'd like to see like what platform were you using to develop the dashboard. Uh, what are some of the downstream impacts? Stuff you might have later in the resume. But if we're doing a career highlight, it should be a highlight right away. Fair. Uh, and cross-functional collaboration, that's not a highlight, like that's a skill everyone has. Your professional skills section next, I like that you split it into professional skills and technical skills. Thank you. Um the technical skills are all very relevant. Uh, like you mentioned specific software, popular industry tools, and platforms. Um, the professional skills are also quite good. You've got like, I don't think we need analytical thinking, everyone can do that, but like data-driven storytelling, marketing performance analysis, stakeholder communications. As long as you're pulling these from the job description, like that's usually how we fill out a key skills section. Now, your experience was where we ran into a little bit of trouble, but I like I think I think what you did here was pretty strategic. So the top job under professional experience for this like marketing role is lead pizza maker. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

Um my current role.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Your current role, which you do have to list your experience in reverse chronological order, most recent to least recent. You don't have a company name there. Um, yeah. My mom and pop shop. Yeah, but you still you still need to be the company name.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Fair.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

But what what's really nice here, and I can see like maybe you've been through a career transition, is that you kept that section very short. You used an overview before the bullet points to tell me you temporarily left the social media industry to support my family's local pizzeria during a period of rapid growth. So you're like using that space to tell the story, which is nice because I am gonna be a bit confused why this person who has these lovely, like relevant skills and professional branding is a pizza maker. You've explained that. And then in your first bullet point, you talked about increasing like production uh and improving the workflow in the like in the pizzeria. That's a transferable skill. Talked about in the next bullet point using uh Power BI dashboards to track inventory level. Now I'm thinking this guy's pretty analytical, he's pretty process improvement focused.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah. Sounds like someone I would want on my team. Even though I'm in a pizzeria, I try to like apply what I would, my industry that I'm applying to.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's a nice example of like transferring the skills. Um, what saved you? This is why this person gets a chance, is that that section is small, and then a like a sizably bigger section right below that is digital marketing marketing data analyst. So now I'm thinking, like, okay, sure, the last four months you've been making pizza. But for six years before that, I can visually see because it takes up a bigger chunk on the page, you were in digital marketing. And then that's a very nice section that I think clearly showcases all the, yeah, as I look at the bullet points, a lot of numbers-based performance. You're speaking to a lot of relevant things like audience segmentation, behavior analysis, A-B testing, more dashboarding, uh, analyzing social data. Like those are the skills I'm looking for if I'm hiring for this role. And like by doing mentioning the marketing analytics in your branding, you kind of primed my brain to think you were there, which bought you the critical couple seconds for me to look past the pizza maker section and see digital marketing. You have a, I see a family care leave April 2018 to June 2019. That's a perfectly fine way to explain that. I don't know what happened, it was six years ago. You've been working steadily ever since. That does not look like a red flag whatsoever. And then you have, like, for three years before that, a social media coordinator role. Fantastic. Um, and a couple of good bullet points there. Yeah, I bring you in for an interview. This is nice. Yeah. Yeah. Am I education? Education stand out in a positive. Uh, you know what? I like that we so you've got the the bachelor's, that's great. And then you've clearly been taking some social media analytics courses. Um, and that was that's great. Because and and because you also listed the completion date of this month. This month. Which shows me that you are like you're engaged currently, even though you're making pizza right now, you're still studying social media. And that is the final kind of like, what's the positive term for a nail in the coffin? That's the buzzer beater. That's the buzzer beater that gets you over the line. Because I'm like, okay, he's still very, very into social media analytics. If he's studying it on his own time right now, I trust that this is his destiny and we can give him a chance.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Awesome. Yeah, that was a great review.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Thank you. Some really tangible takeaways. Yeah, I think that there's some slight improvements, but I'm happy with that.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

And then I must say, in creating that resume for this example, you walked a perfect line of good things and bad things as you were designing it.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Well, thank you. Uh, it's time for our unusual interview question. Um, uh Greg, what is something that you tend to overdo?

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Oh that's a fun question. Um, with Ariana in line. I'm wondering if she can uh weigh in on this. Um, something that I overdo, probably just being a really good husband. Like I just I just crush on that every day.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

That's uh I was gonna say cook chicken. I tend to overcook chicken, I overdo it. But you you're a good husband. Yeah, and that to me screams that that's the right answer. I hope so.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I'm just I'm just giving her a chance to correct me. Um uh Jeff. Yes. As you know, I lost my phone this morning, and then it through a large crowd-sourced effort, I was able to find it. Brought a community together. I did. I got a round of applause when I recovered the phone. Uh, although the applause might have been for the uh the train attendant who who gave it back to me, but you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Let's assume it was for you.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Because they told you to buy a lottery ticket. They did, they didn't tell them to buy a lottery ticket.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

I was very lucky.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

Um, what's the time you've lost something?

SPEAKER_00 20:11

I lose stuff all the time, and nothing makes me more enraged than losing something. I will tear apart my house if I can't find my wallet, and I get very frustrated. Um, you're doing this on purpose. I lost my AirPods and I can't find them. And it's been a month, and I assume that they're here, but they're not here, and I don't know where they are. And this commute this morning on the train was terrible because I couldn't listen to music.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

You lost your AirPods here?

unknown 20:40

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Okay. Well, I you can we have a couple extra pairs, I think. You can have some of ours.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

My my last memory of my AirPods were here. All right. Thanks so much for listening to our episode. If you enjoyed this, don't forget to like and subscribe or send to a friend who's looking for a job. Tune in next week where we talk about how to make failures look good. We'll see you there.