Move your resume to #1 position in 8 Seconds

Land that job interview within 8 seconds or you drop to the bottom of the pile. It can feel extreme but – yes, 8 seconds is the average attention span of a person.

Imagine this. You are excited. Your recruiter has already identified you for the job role. You interview with the recruiter, share your story and polish up your resume after studying up on the company. The recruiter writes a killer bio about you and is able to b-line your “portfolio” directly to the hiring manager’s inbox. You are feeling optimistic. You start envisioning what it would be like to drive to the office, sit at that desk and be part of a fresh new team.

But boom…..no call back. Not a peep. No interview. You start to feel nervous…Was my resume not clear? Was my objective not explicit? Did they get scared because I took off some time to travel?

The questions pour out.

9 times out of 10, it’s not that at all.

Now put yourself into the shoes of a hiring manager. They are dying to make the right hire as an empty seat is costly to the company and inhibits their department’s growth. They are probably working with 3 staffing agencies sending 2-5 candidates each, getting tons of resumes from their internal efforts, in addition to internal referrals for the role.

Recruiters have a direct communication channel to the hiring manager. They have their ear, they have their eye, they have trust. Your recruiter wants you to win that interview slot.  And despite all that, there is still a lot of “other candidate” competition.

What is the solution to get to the top of the pile and beat out the other candidates, to get you that interview fast?

Submit your references in Stage 1 of the process. According to a recent 2019 case study by Terefic, a reference checking platform for staffing and recruitment firms, sending over your checked references responses at the beginning vs. waiting for later, will increase your chances of landing an interview anywhere between 40-100% depending on the industry.

Let’s break this paradigm that references are for the end. Get to the top of the pile and get that interview (and job) fast.

Thanks to our guest contributor Miya Mee-Lee Dias for her insight on this topic!