What is the Reason for a Resume?

Just about everyone who has been employed has one, but what is the reason we all have a resume? If you just said, “to get a job,” you would be factually incorrect. The real reason you have a resume is to land you an interview. It serves no other purpose. Getting you in front of the interview panel is the sole reason resumes exist. 

In most situations, a resume is the first contact you have with a prospective employer – usually the Human Resources Department – and it is your chance to make a good first impression. You use it to show your prospective employer why they should hire you and what the benefits of having you on their team will be. It is ultimately a marketing tool – your shop window! It is far more than just a run-down of your career history; it is your passport to the interview – and the interview is your final destination.

With many employers, the decision to interview or reject a candidate is purely made on the strength of your resume. Did you know that, on average, your resume has less than 15 seconds to make an impact? Often you will be pitching your application in competition with many other job seekers, and it is common for most positions to attract multiple candidates. In those 15 seconds, a seasoned HR specialist will be able to extract the information they are seeking to ensure the minimum requirements to meet the position are being met. If there are applications running into the hundreds (which easily happens with some positions), then the employer may use an automated system to check your resume even before a pair of human eyes even sees it. 

ATS is a software application designed to help an enterprise recruit employees more efficiently. An ATS can be used to post job openings on a corporate website or job board, screen resumes, and generate interview requests for potential candidates by e-mail. Other features may include individual applicant tracking, requisition tracking, automated resume ranking, customised input forms, pre-screening questions and response tracking, and multilingual capabilities. It is estimated that roughly 50-80% of all mid-sized companies and almost all large corporations use some type of applicant tracking system.

But what does this mean for you and your resume? Well, the first thing people think of when talking about automated systems is keyword searching. But although this is used to help recruiters pick out certain industry-specific skills or adjectives that denote your attitude to your profession, seasoned HR specialists realise that great talent is not always recognised just via keywords. A talented HR professional will use software sparingly and strategically. However, it is incumbent upon you to do your homework and not hope that a one-size-fits-all resume will do the trick. Read up on the company and especially the position description and search for keywords you can use organically and congruently within your resume. But this is also where keyword optimisation comes in. It is not just about using certain keywords; it is how often you can use them without making your resume unreadable.

Taking ownership of your resume and recognising its value is the first step in the production of a great document. Whilst the content and structure of your resume are what will ultimately sell you; it is also important to pay attention to its physical appearance, format and layout. This will initially attract the employer to your resume amongst the multitude of others.

Select Resumes can assist you in this regard. We can write your resume, your cover letter, and, if necessary, your key selection criteria. Furthermore, we have hundreds of design templates that will make your resume stand out from the crowd (but make no mistake, a good design will give you an edge, but content is king). Our documents are ATS-compliant, and if you are applying for a government position, we ensure that pagination limits, font size and even page margins are consistent with current requirements (these can differ from state to state as well). 

But remember, your resume exists not to convince the employer to hire you – that will never happen. It is a tool to get you shortlisted along with a select few other people and be invited to interview. If you can remember that whilst writing the document (unless you get us to do it for you!), you are much more likely to write a compelling, successful document.