15 Seconds of Success

In the US they have a neck for doing research. Nowadays, this refers to recruiters as well:

“A recruiter spends 11 seconds looking at a resume before deciding if the person is worthy of an interview”.

Escadra Recruitment Agency is a bunch of incredulous people; we are used to double-checking all opinions. Our result is more modest – we spend 15 seconds.

Here is what we hate to see in these precious 15 seconds:

• A six-page-long resume of a twenty-year-old sales manager – brevity is the sister of wit.
• “Fancy” design – gaudy print, infographics, etc.
• Boring and lengthy lists of job responsibilities clear as they are according to the position.
• Grammatical errors, funny as it may seem, though, they still occur in 25-30% of resumes.
• Reverse chronology – start with the recent place of employment.
• Don’t give us the story of your life; leave it for your children and grandchildren. We are not particularly interested in what you were doing in the summer of 1995.
•  A photo, inadequate both in time and place. We are likely to spend 30 rather than 15 seconds on a low-neckline photo. Don’t waste our time.
• Hobbies – “Photography, Internet, girls, pets” – it all sounds amusing and informative, but why not leave it for your get-togethers with friends.
• Trainings – enumeration of all your 40 trainings within the last five years. Such information was stylish and interesting for your employer some fifteen years ago.
• School and University achievements – we realize that you are proud of your success with a girl from a parallel grade, but it’s not what we are talking about right now.
• Marital status and children – throughout the 10 years of practice we haven’t had any cases of married people discrimination. Leave it for a cordial talk with an HR officer.
• E-mail address coolgirl@mail.ru, tinybirdie@gmail.com, you may certainly be a bird, but we don’t happen to know the range of your flight yet.
• Don’t include the time interval between the jobs – consulting projects. The recruiter realizes that there were no vacancies commensurate with your experience and you were searching for a job.
• Company Vice-President is looking for a position of a sales manager – even if you have been a vice-president of a company comprising three people, be more modest in definitions.
• Habits and skills: Internet user, Microsoft Office, Word. If you were able to write a resume, we take it for granted that you have seen the keyboard and that you know Word.