Warning! Speed-reading zone ahead.

You’ve probably head the old adage (or a variation of it) that you have about 20 seconds to impress someone reading your resume or they’ll move onto the next person and throw yours out or hit the delete button, whatever the case may be.

It really depends on who is reading the resume I guess but in my experience I would certainly suggest that 10-20 seconds is a reasonable amount of time to expect that your resume will be seen by many of the people who might read it whether a hiring manager or recruiter.

This comes with a few provisos as least as far as I’m concerned…

If you have a special skillset or type of experience that is rare, I can say that I would spend a bit more time with someone even if their resume didn’t look great if candidates like this person didn’t grow on trees and there was a premium for people with the skillset or experience.

In IT we often found that experience with a certain platform or technology might help to put a person who would otherwise be considered average into the “must interview” category if they had experience that simply wasn’t easy to find.

In general terms though I would agree that when you have dozens or hundreds of resumes to read through, you’re most likely going to quickly skim most of them in less than 20 seconds and move onto the next one.

What eliminates you in 20 seconds or less?

There are a number of ways your resume typically gets eliminated in 20 seconds or less in my experience and here are the big ones:

1. Your resume itself: I can’t always quickly describe what a great resume “looks” like but I know what a crappy one looks like and they tend to go out the window and into the trash very quickly. We help people who help themselves and having a lousy looking resume doesn’t help anyone.

2. Your current job function: If you don’t immediately look like someone who fits the job you’re applying for, you’ll typically get eliminated because you not only don’t fit the job but apparently can’t read the job description and realize that you don’t fit. People don’t like wasting time with people who can’t follow instructions or who can’t apply for jobs that they’re qualified for.

3. Your education: I have dealt with employers who specifically won’t hire people who (for example) don’t have a university degree. Not a diploma. Not a certificate. A 4 year university degree. It might not be fair but that’s how they roll.

4. Your employers: Many employers want to hire someone who is working for a competitor and won’t settle for less. They typically won’t mention this in the job description of course but they’ll tell their recruiter(s) that this is what they want even if they don’t tell you. Some employers won’t hire people who are currently working for a big company or a small one, some won’t hire from certain companies or industries. It can get pretty confusing to be honest but it happens.

5. Your location: This is always a tough one for people to understand. I’ve had people from other countries emailing me their resume for a local job who get surprised when I tell them the employer is most likely going to hire someone local. And why wouldn’t they prefer someone local? Relocating isn’t something you do on a whim and employers know this so they tend not to put faith in people who live out of town, state/province or country. If you’ve already moved there, great. You’ll possibly be considered for the job but anyone can say “sure, I’ll relocate if I get the job” but if the hiring manager has been burned before by someone saying this, they won’t believe you.

6. Your writing: Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, even an ugly looking font can kill your chances and can often be the tipping point when you’re in the “maybe” pile but the hiring manager simply uses your lack of attention to detail to move you to the “no” pile. Your resume is your calling card and something the “little” things aren’t so little and can ruin your chances at a job interview. You might have the right experience that the hiring manager is looking for but unless you spell it out in a way that they can see, they might look past you if they don’t quickly that what you’re offering is what they need.

Keep that eraser handy!

What’s the single biggest resume mistake you can make that can quickly derail your chances at a job interview and thus a job?

I guess it depends who you ask but you can probably sum it up in a few different ways:

Spelling and grammatical errors: I’ve read resumes where someone has actually written “Attention to detial” as one of their skills. Stuff like that can be a real deal killer not to mention kind of funny when you think about it…although you’re probably not laughing if you’re the person who spells detail as detial and it sticks out of your resume like a sore thumb.

Typos: I tend to notice other people’s typos before I notice my own, so if you’ve seen any in my posts on this site I’ll apologize in advance. I’ll list typos separately from spelling and grammatical errors only because it might be a simple keystroke error and not an actual spelling or grammatical mistake that you’re unaware of but they tend to yield the same results i.e. they don’t look good! They tend to be noticed more by the person reading than the person writing. In other words, you really need to proofread what you write because your eyes might have a harder time finding your mistake(s) than a fresh pair of eyes does. Plus your Word spellcheck might not pick it up if your typo happens to be a real word, just not the one you meant to type.

So what is the biggest resume mistake you can make?

If you look at what I’ve written above, the biggest mistake is essentially a lack of attention to detail and not noticing mistakes and errors that you’ve made in your writing.

I have a hard time admitting it myself because I tend to be a fast typer and often don’t notice mistakes that I’ve made until I’ve read what I’ve written several times. If I don’t re-read what I’ve written I tend not to see these mistakes but I suspect other people reading it do! It probably doesn’t improve my credibility with them either even though chances are it’s just an oversight on my part!

But how many people actually re-read what they’ve written several times?

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve meant to type “their” but typed “they’re” even though I know the difference.

I also have a bad habit of typing a sentence and simply omitting a key word. I’ll just simply forget to type the word “the” or “a” and don’t notice that I’ve done it.

When you make these sorts of mistakes in your resume the problem is that it could be the defining point of how the potential employer sees you and remembers you by which is clearly not a good thing.

Sometimes a hiring manager is looking for a reason to weed people out – especially if they have a number of candidates to consider – and the quality of your resume might be one of the determining factors.

I remember early in my recruitment career having one person’s resume rejected outright by the hiring manager because of the (poor) quality of the person’s writing. In hindsight I should have told the person to fix it up or at least find someone to help them rewrite the resume but I sent the resume as it was (after a spellcheck had eliminated spelling errors) but the grammatical issues were enough for the hiring manager to say “no thanks” and the door was closed on this person’s candidacy as a result.

If you tend to be a mediocre writer or like me tend to be a quick typer who often makes mistakes that you don’t see the first time you check, be sure to re-read what you’ve written, use the spellchecker (but don’t rely on it solely) and if necessary get a second set of eyes to read over what you’ve written too. Getting a second set of eyes and a second opinion might help to avoid getting eliminated from the job search process at the resume submission stage and might also help you see where you’re consistently making mistakes so you can eliminate them.

On my other career website, my most popular page and topic related to the career objective. On this page, people can submit their career objective and get it critiqued by me and can read over the hundreds (and counting) of career objectives already submitted by other visitors.

Amazingly I can count on one hand the number of submissions I’ve received that I’d say would pique my interest enough to think about interviewing the person who wrote it if I was a hiring manager.

Most of the time, I’ll get a very generic submission that goes something like this:

Looking for a position with a dynamic company that offers me opportunities to move up within the company and utilize my strong communication skills and who believes in continuing education and training.

Basically it’s a statement that tells me virtually nothing about the person who wrote it and why the reader should interview them (which is the whole point of the career objective) and instead focuses on everything the person wants from the company.

I delete many of the submissions without posting them or critiquing them because are simply lazy attempts by people and aren’t worth reading. But many are ones that I’m sure are ones that are actually used in the person’s resume…and are ones that add nothing to their candidacy for a job.

Do you write your resume and your career objective in particular with your reader (ie. hiring manager) in mind or do you write it with no regard as to who is reading it or why?

I’m convinced that many people simply go through the motions with their resume and just write it because they have to and don’t pay a lot of attention to the purpose of the document ie. to convince the reader that they should interview them.

It also goes a long way I think to explain why people apply for job they aren’t qualified for, don’t manage their references properly, don’t prepare for interviews, etc. People are often lazy and go for quantity-over-quality and think that if they throw enough stuff against the wall something is bound to stick.

When you write your resume, review each statement and ask yourself “so what” until you can’t ask it anymore. Pretend you’re the hiring manager reading what you’ve written and ask yourself if you care about what you’ve just written.

Remember who your audience is (ie. who are you writing for) and remember that the people who tend to read your resume are those who can positively or negatively influence your job search and are typically searching to address a need or problem that they have ie. they need a new staff member.

How are you helping to address that need with what you’ve written?

The more you interview for jobs, the more you’ll get to experience the personalities of various interviewers.

We often assume or expect that interviews will be formal, professional affairs but often they end up being something different. Sometimes you need to quickly roll with the punches as they say, during a job interview. Specifically, you have to quickly figure out the personality of the interviewer(s) and determine how the interview is going to progress.

Some people are casual by nature and will treat an interview with you in the same way. Others will keep their distance and remain formal throughout.

Personally, I’ve experienced both ends of the interview spectrum and chances are you will too over time. The key is to remember that when we get too comfortable, we often let our guard down and can start saying things that we might regret and that can hurt us during the interview.

I recall earlier in my career before I got into recruitment during a job interview where I was actually first interviewing for a recruitment job. I was interviewing with the co-owner of the company who was a bit of a hard guy to figure out. He then brought in one of the managers to interview me and by now, I was feeling fairly confident and comfortable and must have gotten a case of verbal diarrhea because after the interview with this manager, the co-owner came back in and told me that the manager had said that she thought I was a good candidate but that I “talked a lot.”

He didn’t mean this in a good way, either.

The point was that I’d let my guard down and had probably been a bit too casual with some of my answers.

I can think of numerous instances while working as a recruiter where I’ve had a hiring manager tell me that one of my candidates wasn’t the right person for their job based on how they came across during the interview and in many cases, it seems that the person treated the interview perhaps a bit too casually.

In some instances, this might actually help your cause if the hiring manager gets a connection with you and starts believing that you’re the ideal person for the job. In other cases, it can hurt you especially if you let your guard down and perhaps say things you shouldn’t have.

The rule of the day refers to how your current employer’s name and reputation in the market often has an impact on your ability to get a job elsewhere.

As a recruiter, I can tell you that the company you’re working for – and the companies you’ve worked for in the past – often has a big impact on hiring managers and other people who might have a say in hiring you.

I’ve seen hiring managers who specifically want to hire people who are currently employed by a certain company.

Conversely, I’ve seen hiring managers who say that they specifically don’t want people who come from certain employers or industries, too.

I’ve also seen hiring managers who ask me about a person’s current employer because they’ve never heard of them ie. Who are they? What do they do? How many people work there? That’s usually not a good sign.

Hiring managers often want to hire someone who is coming directly from their competitors. Mind you, some jobs might be better for someone who has no experience in the industry as the hiring manager would like someone with a clean slate who they can train from scratch.

The industry you work in can often have an impact on your options too. If you work in pharmaceuticals for example, working for a generic manufacturer might have an impact on your ability to get a job with a brand name manufacturer. Some people might consider going from a brand name to a generic manufacturer a big career decision.

In IT and other industries, consulting firms often only want to hire staff who come from other well-established and respected consulting firms.

I’ve seen hiring managers who specifically want people who have worked in large corporate environments and not small companies. Specific examples I’ve seen were for customer service and technical support roles where the hiring manager wanted someone with experience supporting hundreds or thousands of users and not several dozen.

You can’t predict what future employers will think of your current employer or your future career choices, but it’s best to at least think about the possible impact before jumping ship and taking a new job.

Waiting for a job offer – or waiting for an employer to give you some sort of response and feedback following a job interview – can be one of the most frustrating parts of the job search process.

In today’s economy, many companies might be thinking twice or three times before hiring a new staff member. It that regard, it might help to explain why you aren’t getting a quick response following an interview or why you’re waiting around for days or weeks for a job offer that you believed was coming your way.

Mind you, the hiring manager might just be lazy, incompetent or both. That happens too. Sometimes you’re dealing with someone who isn’t really that motivated and will get around to it when they get around it to.

Recruiters like to say that “time kills deals.” In other words, the longer it takes to get a job offer in the hands of a job candidate, the less likely that the “deal” – the job offer gets extended by the employer and accepted by the job searcher – will get closed.

Job searchers can lose interest in the job, they can find another job in the meantime, they can change their mind, lots of things can happen.

I can recall numerous times where a hiring authority tells me that a job candidate I’m working with has done well in an interview and they feel good about the person’s chances to get hired.

A few days pass by and nothing happens so when I call the manager for an update, I’m told there isn’t one.

A few more days pass by and nothing has happened. I follow up again and am again told that there is no update.

A few more days pass by and at this point, I’m fairly certain that no job offer is coming but I call the manager anyways to get some specifics.

Meanwhile, the job searcher thinks they’re getting a job offer because the hiring manager basically told them as much in the last interview so they’re excited and they’re calling me every day for an update.

When all is said and done, the person doesn’t get a job offer and typically they’ve soured on the company for screwing them around and maybe even on me because they think I had something to do with it even when I didn’t.

I faced this same issue early in my career when I was waiting for an interview with a company that I was told (I was working with a recruiter on this job) they wanted to interview me. In fact the recruiter told me I’d hear directly from the hiring manager on a specific day so I literally waited by the phone on the day for the call.

It never came. I never got a call that day and I was pretty upset because I figured they were no longer interested.

I called the recruiter several times for updates but he didn’t have any.
The recruiter told me not to worry, that the call would come.

Two more days passed by and by now, I figured the job must have been filled and they just never bothered to tell me. Instead, I get a call from the recruiter telling me he had spoken with the hiring manager and had scheduled the interview. So I was relieved, but I was still a bit angry that two days had passed by and no one had told me anything.

Fast forward to after the interview had taken place, I again was told that good news was coming from the company, that they wanted to hire me. Again, I was given a specific time frame when I’d get a call from the hiring manager with the specifics and again the call never came on time.

Another 2 days passed by and I was again following up with the recruiter to get an update but again he didn’t have one.

Finally, I got a call from not the hiring manager but one of his staff who had interviewed me and she told me they were hiring me.

Once I started with the company and I learned more about my manager, I realized why he had been so late with the interview and job offer and why he’d missed both deadlines, that he had in fact set himself.

He wasn’t a timely person.

He was late for meetings, was always rushing around trying to be on time, and this is simply who he was. He was not a person who was very good at being on time and to be honest, he didn’t seem to care much or notice. Others in our group often joked and complained about how unreliable he was in terms of timeliness. I recall group meetings when he’d show up 20 minutes late quite regularly.

Had I known about his lack of time management skills ahead of time, I probably wouldn’t have worried so much when he never contacted me at the previously mentioned times.

But I didn’t know. And chances are you don’t know much about the hiring manager(s) you’re dealing with when you’re waiting for them to do something ie. interview you, check your references, offer you the job, etc.

What can you do about it?

I was able to follow up with the recruiter I was working with since he was working between me and the hiring manager. I could call the recruiter for updates. If you’re working with a recruiter, I would listen to their instructions and follow up with them for updates regarding a job you’re applying for.

But should you call a hiring manager directly for an update on your candidacy if you’re dealing directly with them and not a recruiter? If they’ve given you a time frame for a response and the time frame has passed and you have no response, it’s certainly reasonable that you might call them or email them for an update. I wouldn’t contact them the moment the deadline has passed but you might try to contact them the next day for an update if you still haven’t heard.

In some cases, you might have a situation where you are waiting for Company A to respond, and then get a job offer from Company B. In this case, you think about contacting Company A and asking them for an answer in case there is a chance that you end up with two job offers and get to choose between the two (wouldn’t that be great!?)

In this instance, I’d certainly contact Company A and let them know I need an answer but only if I really do have a job offer from Company B in hand. Some people think they can bluff and get Company A to speed up their decision by pretending they have another job offer from someone else but this is not a very good idea. If Company A calls your bluff, you’ve got nothing.

Sometimes, you’re on the hiring manager’s time frame – as I was with the example I gave above – and you need to figure out if you want to wait around for their response or not. When you have other job options from other employers, things might be a bit different since you’ve got some leverage.

Even then, sometimes you’re still on the company’s time frame.

Incompetence is something you will face during your career and during job searches. Let me give you a personal example.

I kept a copy of an email I received unsolicited from a recruitment firm that was contacting me to enquire about my interest in speaking with them regarding jobs they have with their clients. I got the following email message, the body of which I’ve copied and pasted below but taking out the name of the company who sent it. I’ve bolded the comments in the email that I found most interesting:

[start of email]
Good afternoon,

I am contacting you after a thorough review of your online resume. Your background and qualifications match those of individuals we have been most successful in working with, and we would like to meet with you in person.

ABC Company is the only company working with professionals to obtain their ideal position amidst the most uncertain times of our generation. We specialize in traditional and growth industries in all disciplines.

Our firm deals specifically with positions from $100,000 up to the most senior levels, as well as the very specific needs of both people and companies at this level. We have direct access to a majority of the companies and recruiters that will want to discuss the knowledge and experience that you can bring to their company, or to their clients.

In case you are not familiar with ABC Company, please visit our website at [company's website] prior to our first discussion.

Please attach an updated copy of your resume, and review your calendar so that we can schedule a meeting, and further discuss your career opportunities.
[end of email]

Good afternoon,: I’m always suspect of people who contact me without addressing the email to me personally. Afterall, they did go on to say that they’d done a “thorough review” of my online resume which I presume means they’d have learned my first name at least.

ABC Company is the only company…: This statement is mindless and clearly untrue. So they’re the only company in the whole wide world who could possibly help me find a new job if I was looking for one? I don’t think so. Whatever credibility they had at this time is now gone with this silly statement.

We have direct access to a majority of the companies and recruiters that will want to discuss…: First off, how would the person sending this email have any idea about which companies would want to speak with me when this person hasn’t even spoken with me yet? As mentioned above, they don’t even seem to know my name. There are what, millions of companies around the world, and they claim they have access to “a majority” of them? Please.

This is a typical form email that the person and company sending it apparently don’t realize looks and smells like one from a mile away.

On a whim, I responded to the person who sent me the email and said the following to them:

Hi [name removed]

Thanks for your email. Having worked as a recruiter, when I saw your email I noticed that you didn’t refer to me specifically by name in your opening so I can’t tell if this is a generic email that gets sent to everyone or if you do see something in my background that might interest a specific client(s). Perhaps you could confirm.

Thanks.

Carl

I never did hear back from them.

Bottom line: watch out for incompetence during your job search and career. Read carefully what people email you and don’t be afraid to ask questions up front to avoid wasting your time and getting your hopes up for no reason.

In this case, the company who sent me the email was on a fishing expedition probably just trying to collect resumes but I didn’t fall for it.