TheLadders recently conducted a study of recruiters’ on-the-job behavior. They used “eye tracking” technology, which conducts an advanced assessment of eye movement to record and analyse where and how long a person focuses when digesting information, or completing activities.
The study gauged behaviours of actual recruiters as they performed online tasks, including resume and candidate profile reviews. Thirty professional recruiters took part in the study during a 10-week period.
The most revealing insight is that recruiters spent about 6 seconds on their initial “fit/no fit” decision. If they liked what they saw during these 6 seconds, then they would probably read the resume in more detail at some point.
80% of their initial resume review time was spent on the following information:
- Name.
- Previous position start and end dates.
- Current title/company.
- Current position start and end dates.
- Previous title/company.
- Education.
The remaining 20% of their review time was spent on other details of the resume, such as job responsibilities and achievements. When looking at this information recruiters did little more than scan for keywords to match the open position, which amounted to a very cursory “pattern matching” activity.
The conclusions from the study, underscore the importance of having an excellent first page for your resume - HOW TO WRITE A RESUME THAT WOOS RECRUITERS – MAKE GOOD USE OF PRIME REAL ESTATE.
