Your job application may be rejected after a quick first look at your résumé, and you may be surprised why. As a former recruiter, I know that the initial review of an application can be a fast, final evaluation of an applicant’s potential.
Most decision-makers won’t divulge their knockout criteria, but there are many often-silent reasons people don’t get interviews. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to avoid triggering “no” decisions.
To advance your candidacy, I recommend avoiding these three application-sabotaging mistakes:
1. Failing to convince hiring managers that you can hit the ground running
Many managers want to hire people they don’t have to micromanage. Much like the Wizard of Oz, they want to say, “Bring me the broomstick of the Witch of the West.” Then they want their new hire to shout, “I have a plan. I’m on it!” as they charge out the door.
Because of that, they look at your résumé to learn the following:
- Where you’ve worked
- Your job titles
- How much relevant experience you have
- Your employment stability
Researchers have found that résumés often receive only a seven-second scan. In that short time, recruiters and hiring managers want to know:
- If applicants have the experience they need
- How long they’re likely to stay on the job
Details such as your former employers, job titles, and employment dates drive decision-makers’ initial short lists. If you know your résumé does not include a specific detail that a hiring manager is looking for, take heart: Even during a rapid scan, decision-makers read résumé headlines. Therefore, be sure to use your résumé headline to demonstrate your ability to solve the manager’s problems.
Make sure your headline catches the attention of hiring managers and demonstrates why you would make a good fit for the role. You want to motivate the decision-maker to go beyond a quick scan and read your whole résumé. Then you want to ensure that it provides facts that confirm your claim.
While you might not be the candidate they had in mind, you want them to say, “I think this person could do the job. Let’s talk with them.”
2. Not demonstrating long-term employment stability
When I was a recruiter, I always asked my clients how long a new hire had to stay on the job for our search to be considered successful.
I used that information to evaluate applicants. I calculated a person’s average tenure in jobs held in the previous 10 years. If my client wanted three years and an applicant’s average tenure was two years, they were usually out.
While that might sound harsh, a record of job-hopping often presages future issues. It may be that the person does not have clear goals, so they keep taking the wrong jobs. Or they might need to work better with others. I got paid to help my clients avoid these kinds of problems, but I still looked for explanations for rapid turnover. Perhaps the applicant’s company sold. Or they had a good reason for leaving a job—like a juicy offer from a former boss. So assess your record of employment stability. If it seems light, briefly explain your résumé’s short tenures and gaps.
Conversely, it is also possible for résumés to come across as too stable. Most recruiters have a number that triggers concern. Mine was seven years with the same company. Lengthy tenures flag applicants as possible quiet-quitters. To prevent that perception, share your accomplishments and their impact on your résumé. Two- to three-line bulleted vignettes will get more looks from readers than bigger blocks of text.
The other potential problem with long periods of time in the same role is that it can raise concerns about how you will integrate with a new team. Those abilities get rusty when they go unused. And people get less adaptable when they don’t change work environments.
Thus, always position yourself as a low-risk candidate for “tissue rejection.” That’s recruiter jargon for what happens when colleagues don’t accept new hires. To be convincing that you can fit in, consider your recent work history. Use your résumé to describe situations in which you had to adapt and did so successfully.
3. Weak writing
Finally, research shows that General Mental Ability (GMA) is the best predictor of job performance. Sadly, decision-makers often receive résumés that include content that doesn’t make sense. When that happens, they may think less of the applicant’s GMA (and are often less likely to interview that person).
First, check to see if your résumé makes sense. To do this, ask someone you respect to read your résumé. Get help, because it’s hard to spot confusing language after you’ve immersed yourself in the document. Fixing simple errors in the readability of your résumé could be the difference between getting an interview or crickets.
And we have to talk about typos and grammatical errors. Too many preventable mistakes also make decision-makers question an applicant’s GMA.
To avoid that problem, spell-check your résumé. Then, run it through proofreading software to pop other errors. Typos will not impress hiring managers.
Be sure to scan your résumé for the saboteurs described above and take steps to avoid them. When you do, you will land more interviews.
Donna Svei writes executive and board résumés. Previously, she was a retained search consultant for 25-plus years and a C-level corporate executive.
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