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.

How can you find jobs that don't exist?

The first placement I ever made in recruitment was with a senior IT professional who interviewed with a bank who was a client of ours who didn’t actually have a job open but when they heard about this candidate’s background in IT security, decided to interview him anyways. They ended up creating a job for him and hired him for this newly-created position.

In another instance, I had a candidate who was relocating to a particular city and a big hiring company in that area was looking for new staff so with her permission I floated her name and resume past the hiring manager to see if they might be interested in her. She had a background in project management and they were in fact building a new project management team so I felt there was a good chance they’d be interested in her. Sure enough they were interested and after flying her in for an interview, ended up hiring her and relocating her to their city.

So in these two instances, two people were hired for jobs that not only hadn’t previously existed but that had never actually been advertised either. So not only did these two people get a new job created for them based on their skillset they essentially managed to avoid the typical interview process where they have to compete with other candidates for the same position.

Situations like this do happen albeit probably not as frequently as you’d like, where a job is created basd on your skillset and experience. The common aspect of both of these instances was that the two hiring companies in question needed people with a specific skillet and based on their immediate need, were happy with hiring people to fill jobs that hadn’t previously existed and also bypass the need to interview a number of people for this position. Obviously if you’re the only person being interviewed for a job your odds are better than if you were competing with numerous other people!

How can you identify opportunities for yourself like this?

In my case, I identified both companies many months earlier and had in fact called the hiring manager numerous times and over time, the hiring managers shed light on what was happening in their respective companies so I learned more about what they might need every time I called them. So when I came across the two candidates mentioned above I felt confident that the company would be interested in them based on what I’d learned about them over the previous talks with the hiring authority.

Certainly you might not have this time to contact a handful of companies over and over again and hope that something pans out. Having said that I’ve also seen cases where a person identifies a company that interests them and gets an interview but based on what sort of job they’re looking for and based on what the hiring manager needs at that time, sometimes both sides agree to keep in touch until a job opportunity arises that meets what both sides are looking for.

To help you find a job opportunity that might not currently be advertised or might not currently even exist, the first thing you need to do is figure out what skills, experience, education, traits, etc that you have that sets you apart from other people. What do you have in your background that other candidates applying for the same jobs you are don’t have? What is your competitive advantage?

Depending on your experience and background, you might find that you have one or more aspects of your background that a potential hiring company would be very interesated to hear about. The next step of course is to identify companies who would potentially want to directly hear from someone like yourself. When I say directly, I mean you contact the company directly yourself and not through a recruiter for example. Going through a recruiter means that not only does the company then have to decide whether or not they want to hire you, they first have to decide if they want to work with a recruiter who they’d have to pay money to should they hire you. By contacting companies directly you’re cutting out the middleman and decreasing the decisions that the company has to make.

These days, there are companies who exist who would love to have a solid, hard-to-find candidate literally drop in their lap. I’ve seen it happen including recently with a friend of mine in the oil business who directly applied to many companies even when they had no job advertised and even when many were laying people off. He eventually applied to one who was open to meeting with him and in fact desperately needed someone with his skills and after one interview, they basically hired him on the spot.

We're number 1! Or number 2. It depends who's counting.

One popular job search myth is the believe that the most qualified person always gets the job. First off, “most qualified” is clearly up for debate especially if there is more than one person making the hiring decision and most likely there are no two candidates that are exactly alike so at the end of the day, the person who is most qualified is largely something determined by intangibles that are ranked differently by different people.

In recruitment, we got to see a number of cases where the person that we felt was very qualified for a job ended up being less qualified in the eyes of the person who actually made the ultimate decision i.e. the hiring authority. It doesn’t mean we were wrong – we might have actually been correct – but if the hiring authority hires someone else, it could be for a number of different reasons and being the best qualified for the job might not actually be the primary determinant.

Here are some reasons I’ve seen where a person gets a job (or loses one) based on something other than how qualified they were:

1. Money: How much money are you asking for? If a company can hire someone for cheaper, they’ll often do it even if you’re a better fit for the job.

2. Money II: Another reason that money comes into the equation is if you applied to a job through a recruiter. Typically if you get hired through a recruiter the recruitment company gets paid a fee by the hiring company. That’s how recruiters make money. If a company can hire a candidate without paying a fee – when the person applied directly to the company rather than coming through a recruiter – the hiring company can save themselves thousands of dollars – and perhaps tens of thousands of dollars – by hiring the person who applied directly and not the person who came through a recruiter. Don’t think this happens? It does, and quite frequently in my experience.

3. Favoritism: Favoritism can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Perhaps the hiring manager hires a friend. They might hire someone who they were told to hire by their superior. Maybe they hired someone who was referred to them. That’s a form of favoritism although it’s not necessarily a bad one. These days companies probably feel more comfortable hiring someone referred to them by someone they trust rather than hiring someone they don’t know. Obviously if you’re the one they don’t know, that can put you at a disadvantage.

The worst part is that you might never actually realize why you lose out on a job and simply assume you did something wrong when in fact the opposite might be true. Sometimes the cards are stacked against you and it’s an uphill battle that you just can’t overcome.

Not all hiring decisions come down to simply hiring the most qualified person.

With the Internet changing the way we search for jobs – and the way recruiters and hiring manager search for potential employees – comes the ability to search for a new job using some of the existing technologies you’re already using.

Twitter is a great example of a technology that can be used to find a new job and at a minimum to network and meet people (virtually meet them anyways) who might be able to positively influence your job search and ultimately your career.

I recently read a newspaper article that gave examples of people who had found new jobs using Twitter. In one case, the person had followed a Twitter feed that advertised local jobs and saw a tweet that referenced a job that interested him. He applied for it and got the job.

In another instance, it was a case of someone who had been followed by another person on Twitter who ended up interviewing them for a job after following them for awhile, learning about them, and being impressed enough by what they saw to ask if they’d be interested to interview for a new job.

It goes to show you that technology like this can be used for your advantage in a career setting. It also goes to show you the importance of keeping your profile – in this case your tweets – professional.

As an aside, I also know of recruiters who in some cases either use LinkedIn exclusively or almost exclusively to search for job candidates to fill their jobs which is another great way to get noticed online by people you don’t currently know. The same might be said for actual hiring managers who use LinkedIn to find staff for their company.

In staffing terms, recruitment refers to the process of looking for new staff.

A recruitment agency is a company that specializes in recruitment. They employ recruiters to find client companies who are willing to pay the recruitment firm to find their staff for them.

A recruiter is someone who recruits people to join their company or someone else’s company.

Typically a recruiter gets paid by the hiring company to help them find new staff and recruits people like yourself using various means.

One of the benefits of working with a recruiter – specifically a good recruiter – is that they often have access to information that can benefit you if you are being considered for a job that they are trying to fill.

A good recruiter has an intimate knowledge of their clients and what they want. They can shed light on specific aspects of a particular job that can help you get the job.

This is information that you wouldn’t otherwise know about if you had have applied for the job on your own or through other means.

As a recruiter I can tell you that this additional flow of information can be worth its weight in gold to you.

Taking a step backwards, being recruitable refers to your ability to catch the interest of recruiters and more importantly and by extension, hiring managers.

Being desirable in the eyes of recruiters and hiring managers can affect your ability to get the job you want whether you choose to use recruiters or not.

With the rise of the Internet, it’s become easier in many regards to “find” people. These days you can Google your own name to see what pops up. Last month I was trying to find a friend of my dad’s who we’d lost track of. I couldn’t find him so I searched for his kids and found his daughter’s contact information on her employer’s website!

Clearly, the increasing popularity of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the like have also made it easier to find people. Posting your resume on multiple job boards, posting articles or comments on Internet websites can further increase your online profile.

Increasing your online profile can make it easier for people (ie. recruiters, hiring managers) to find you…mind you depending on what you’re saying and how you are presenting yourself online, that can both help or hurt you.

Ethics in the field of hiring, staffing and recruitment is based on a combination of things and depends on who is actually involved in the hiring process.

Certainly the job searcher, hiring manager and recruiter are just three possible people involved in a hiring decision.

As a recruiter, I try my best to gauge the truthfulness of comments by both job searchers and hiring managers and they presumably are gauging my truthfulness as well.

Commonly, job searchers often lie about various aspects of their resume ie. their salary, why they left their last job, their job responsibilities, their educational achievements, etc.

Hiring managers might lie about why they are looking to hire a new person ie. they might lie about why the previous person left the job they are trying to fill (if the last person who held the job was fired for something embarrassing like having an office affair or something like that, do you think the hiring manager will tell you the truth about why the person was fired? Me neither). Similarly a hiring manager probably won’t tell you that the previous person quit the job because they were bored or because they thought their manager was a jerk either.

A recruiter needs to find the truth and often needs to read between the lines of comments that are made to them by either the job searcher or the hiring manger.

Similarly some recruiters aren’t always capable of telling the truth 100% of the time either. Recruiters often have a reputation not much better than a used car salesman – no offense to used car salesmen – and sometimes it’s not difficult to see why.

Whether you’re a job searcher looking for a job, a hiring manager looking to fill a job, or a recruiter looking for a job searcher to fill a job, the truth tends to come out one way or the other.

As a recruiter, I have a hard time working with people I can’t trust and I’m usually a pretty good judge of character. I tell the truth when working with job searchers and hiring managers alike and I expect them to do the same.

There are plenty of honest job searchers, hiring managers and recruiters out there and life is just too short to waste time with people who aren’t trustworthy.

As a recruiter, I can tell you that what I’m about to mention can not only help you get more and better job opportunities to consider, but can also of course lead to more job offers to consider.

Here are some traits that I love seeing in job searchers that I’m dealing with:

They have a great personality: Granted, not everyone is chatty and not everyone has the same personality but I love dealing with people who are happy to speak with me and show enthusiasm. I’m always worried when I speak with people who are monotone and sound uninterested when speaking with me because chances are they’ll act the same way in an interview and that’s not good.

They value my time: And as a result I value theirs, too. I hate when I’ve helped someone find a suitable job opportunity with a client, they apply for it, I help them prepare for interviews and then they go into the interview and do something stupid like show up late or arrive unprepared. Then when I tell them they aren’t getting invited back for a second interview or aren’t getting a job offer, their reaction isn’t one of disappointment and they don’t apologize for being late or not being prepared but instead basically say “well, go find me another job to apply for” as if I’m going to drop what I’m doing and go through this time-wasting process with them again.

They answer the questions without me having to ask: I love when I get an email from a person looking for a job and in the email they tell me why they want to leave their current position, the money they’re looking for, the locations they’ll consider working in and the type(s) of position they want. I like dealing with organized people who know what they want and tell me up front what they want.

They know what companies they’ve already applied to: I hate running a job past someone and being told by the person that they’ve never applied to the company before but within minutes of emailing the person’s resume over to the hiring manager, having the hiring manager tell me that they got this person’s resume the previous week from another recruiter or that the person applied directly themselves. Some job searchers are very unorganized and some are just bad liars. Upon being told that a company already has their resume, the bad liars usually (unconvincingly) tell me that they can’t remember applying to the company or they admit that they did apply but because they didn’t hear back from the company, they figured it would be ok if I sent their resume over, too.

They only enquire about jobs they are qualified for: Too many people apply for jobs that they aren’t qualified for. You can quickly eliminate yourself from a recruiter’s good books by constantly calling and/or emailing them regarding jobs that you aren’t qualified for. The good job candidates are ones who recognize that they aren’t qualified for a job – sometimes I need them to tell me if they have enough of certain skills to apply for a particular job – and the best job candidates are ones who recognize that they aren’t qualified for a job…and then they refer me to someone who is. Which leads us to the last point…

If I help them, they help me: The recruitment business is about relationships and meeting new people and there is nothing better you can do for a good recruiter than help them when they’ve helped you. Referring a good recruiter to friends and other people you know – whether they’re currently searching for a new job or not, whether they’re currently hiring staff or not – is the best thing you can do for a recruiter. Anytime you can give a recruiter a few names of people you know is a good thing. When I help someone find a job and ask them for a few referrals, when they tell me they’ll give me a few and never do, that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. When I help someone, I like when they at least try to return the favor.

The first placement I made as a recruiter – the first time I successfully helped a person find a job with one of our clients – was for a Director-level position with a major bank that was in the process of setting up their IT security division.

The best part was that the job didn’t even officially exist.

When I started speaking with the candidate about the job… well, I couldn’t really talk about the job because “the job” didn’t exist. It hadn’t actually been created. All we knew was that the person I was speaking with would be someone who the bank would be interested to meet.

Basically what happened was that one of my colleagues had just started working with a hiring manager who was responsible for building a new security division for the bank he was employed by. Back in 2000 when this story took place, IT security professionals who held a certification called the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) were in high demand and limited supply.

I had been referred to a guy who not only held his CISSP and was an experienced IT security professional but was starting to think about looking for a new job but wanted a senior level position that would be a good move for him and for his family.

While it took a bit of convincing that he should go over to the bank and meet with the hiring manager for a job that didn’t actually exist, he agreed to do so and the initial meeting went well.

For the second and subsequent interviews, it was agreed between the hiring manager and my candidate that the two would put a job together that met the company’s requirements and that also met my candidate’s requirements and thus, a position was created that he accepted. He started with the company about 5 weeks after the first time I’d spoken with him regarding the opportunity with the bank.

Another example I can think of – this can happen quite frequently actually – was when I sent a candidate out to interview for a job with one of my clients but where both the client and candidate ended up agreeing that the job was not a good match. Instead, the company created a new position for this person that would make use of some of the skills he had that other candidates they’d interviewed did not have.

In the first case, my candidate was hesitant to go interview for a job that didn’t exist and where no job description existed. In the second case, my candidate understood ahead of time that he didn’t have all the skills the client was looking for but was still willing on my suggestion to interview for the job and ended up getting a job more suited to his abilities.

What does this mean to you?

While you want to apply for jobs that fit your profile and interests, don’t be so quick to turn down the opportunity to interview for a job that on the surface may not be exactly what you are looking for. It might not lead to something else but in the two cases I mentioned above, it certainly did.

If you have been working with a recruiter(s) and suddenly find yourself not getting your calls or emails returned, you might be wondering if you’ve been blacklisted by them.

The truth is that some recruiters – like other people in your life I’m sure – are good at returning calls and emails and others aren’t. Many recruiters will only contact you when they have a job to discuss with you. Remember that recruiters get paid by the hiring company not by the candidate so if they have no job to discuss with you, they have no financial reason to speak with you. That’s the cold reality of the recruitment business.

Certainly it makes sense to keep in touch with recruiters and as a recruiter I feel that it’s good to keep in touch with good candidates – with emphasis on the word good. I’m referring to job searchers that the recruiter can place in a job with one of their clients – to see what they’re up to from time to time whether or not I have to job to discuss with them.

Not all recruiters feel this way though. Many will just call you or give you some time when they have a job for you and that’s it.

There are however some reasons why you may have essentially been blacklisted by one or more recruiters and here are some of the popular ones:

1. You’ve interviewed for one or more jobs with their clients and haven’t gotten a job offer from them. In other words, you probably did something during the interview that you aren’t aware of or you simply did poorly in the interview(s) and the recruiter doesn’t see value with working with you anymore. Remember, the recruiter gets paid if they help you get a job with one of their clients. No job for you, no money for the recruiter.

2. You don’t stop harrassing them. If you frequently call and/or email a recruiter and they keep trying to blow you off, you might not have gotten the message and so the recruiter simply stops working with you because you’re too high maintenance. I’ve had a few people who just won’t stop calling me and I end up not working with them as a result.

3. You’re not honest. A few times, I’ve caught a job searcher in a lie (ie. they lied about their skills, current salary, work status, why they left their last job, etc) and once the truth comes out, sometimes the lie is too big to ignore and the recruiter simply decides not to work with you anymore.

4. You’re not as good as your resume would suggest. As per point #3, sometimes people aren’t honest but in other instances they’re simply not that good. Sometimes you read someone’s resume, interview them and think that they are a good candidate but it isn’t until they hit the interview process that they get exposed by the hiring manager as a weak candidate. Often their resume makes them look better than what they actually are and when the person gets exposed as a weak candidate (or a dishonest one who embellishes their experience), it looks bad on the recruiter who most likely won’t want to make a mistake with that same person twice.

The issue of whether of not to disclose your salary to a recruiter is one of those topics that is often up for debate. You’ve probably been told to defer talking about salary in an interview with a hiring company as long as possible and this certainly makes sense.

A few months back I spoke about my experience when I attended an interview that was arranged by a recruiter without knowing the salary of the job going into the interview and what a waste of time that was.

In other words, a lack of information cost me and contributed to me wasting time and effort applying for a job I never should have.

The point of letting your recruiter know what sort of money you’re currently making and what you’re looking for is to avoid applying for jobs that don’t meet your requirements or conversely are way outside your abilities.

I can only think of perhaps a handful of times I’ve asked someone what sort of money they are making and not received an answer back. Most times people understand why I’m asking the question and give me the answer. In the few occasions where the answer isn’t given, a red light immediately goes on in my head and I wonder why the person won’t tell me what they’re earning?

Typically, the person says I should run jobs past them and they’ll let me know if it suits them or not based on what the job pays. There’s no way I’m playing that game. I’m not guessing what jobs to put past someone based on what I think they’re earning. I’m not wasting my time doing that.

Again though, this happens very rarely. Remember, when you’re dealing with a recruiter you’re not working against them. You’re supposed to be working together and telling them what you earn isn’t going to prejudice you in the eyes of the recruiter since the recruiter isn’t the one going to hire you.

In fact that opposite is true. It should help you avoid applying for jobs that don’t suit you (ie. it doesn’t pay enough, is beyond your level of experience).