10 seconds to make your resume light up

My theory is that you have 10 seconds to make your resume impressive. I will explain the reason, and provide some suggestions to help you pass the 10-second test.

Good people, bad resumes

Although numerous books and articles teach you how to write resumes, there is still too much room to improve. How did I get it? Because I read too many bad resumes while interviewing others. Most candidates are talented and creative, passionate and successful, but their resumes are poor. This is unfortunate, because I do not want to see such a good person was rejected.

I occasionally do some career guidance, and the people I talked with told me the following suggestions for writing resumes are very useful. So, I decided to make it public, share it with everyone, and hopefully it will help you too.

Curriculum Vitae: A short piece of paper that makes creative, intelligent people uninteresting.

What do I cover:

1. Stand in the interviewer's perspective to measure your resume

2. Evaluate your resume with friends

3. Modify your resume, highlight the key

Evaluate your resume

I used to think that people who read their resume read each word carefully. I am too naive. You have to recognize the fact that they do not do that. This is an important point. It's easier for interviewers to read your resume than you can navigate the menu in the restaurant.

Look at the problem from the perspective of the person reading your resume

Do you know who will read your resume when you apply? Sometimes recruiters, and sometimes ordinary employees. They want to be able to get back to their normal jobs. They read a bunch of resumes of people who share the same talent and experience as yours. When they look at your resume, they think about their own work, their family, their next trip, or what to eat at noon (well, grilled cheese).

You care about it all, but they have other things to do. Please feel free to think of them. Now, let's continue ...

Why choose you?

If there are a lot of people applying for the same job, you can think most of them have many similarities with you, especially resumes. Such as rich experience, recognized leadership, a good academic background. So, what can make you stand out from the other outstanding candidates? Generally, frustrating is that there is not a lot of ways.

So, my theory is this:

"10 second test"

My theory is that your resume has only 10 seconds to illustrate important points. If it's done, you'll be fighting for 20 seconds. This 30 second is very important, it will determine your resume is thrown aside, or will be considered into the next round.

Your resume is an "elevator lobbying" ("elevator lobbying" refers to a short introduction to products, services, institutions and their value proposition by elevator in about 30 seconds to two minutes, elevator lobbying to invest in venture capitalists and angels Instead of telling your life story, you sell your business ideas to raise money.) You just need to enter the next round of interviews, the next stage. Now, remember busy people are reading your resume? Make sure they see the most important achievements first, and attract them to read the next page.

Test your resume

Find someone who does not know your job to help you. Here we assume that this person is called Joe Smith.

Give Zhang San a printed copy of your resume and tell him you have only 30 seconds to read it. However, after 10 seconds, get back your resume and ask him what he learned from your resume. If his answer is how you want to sell yourself to the interview manager, give him your resume and let him read for another 20 seconds. Then ask him what he learned.

If you are satisfied with Zhang's answer, you pass the first pass test and stay ahead of the majority. If at any given moment he can not reach your most important point, then you need to change your resume. After the modification, repeat this process until you pass the test.

Modify your resume

Let's start with the beginning of your target statement.

"Why did you start?

I am a big fan of Simon Sinek and wrote a book called Start With Why. He elaborates on a simple but significant weight: "People do not buy what you've done, but buy why you do it." Once you understand someone's motivation and their personal deeds, they do What (their experience) is evidence of their decision based on their passion and principles.

If you start with a strong statement of purpose as your resume, you create a framework for the reader to understand why you did something in a company. Be sure to make this statement very powerful. Do not say your goal is to get a job or the like, you apply for the post, people naturally know this.

If you do not know how to write a good statement of purpose, ask yourself why you want to apply for the job for the company and ask your friends and family why they think you will do well in the job. I hope you are passionate about the work you are going to do there and I would think that you really wanted the job (not?). So make sure your resume explains why you want to get the job and how it will help you achieve your goals in life.

Deny the form of the list

Unfortunately, everyone organizes their resumes in the reverse order of the time they've done before. Within each section there will be a set of points that contains the project, responsibilities, achievements, and developmental skills. This is a list that can be very tedious to read because there is no level of information to focus on. In trying to make oneself appear comprehensive, people dilute their most important accomplishments.

Do not do this! You organize the content in a way that helps highlight the topic.

I invented a time machine. . . . . . But other staff did the same

As I said before, you want to insert your most important achievements in front of your resume. One or two accomplishments, accompanied by proper explanations and instructions, are enough to attract the recruiter's attention. If you really did some great things, be sure to highlight it, rather than letting others hide its light. This requires passing a 10 second test.

A great achievement will get you into the next round. Do not let your part-time job at a coffee shop affect readers to read what you really want. I find college graduates often make such mistakes. What you do at a fraternity or club is unlikely to draw the attention of the personnel manager (unless they really have a relationship with the job).

Reduce nonsense

Avoid writing things that will not be approved by the HR manager. Here are some examples of useless sentences, and how I understood it if I read it. You will find that they are just some nonsense.

"Some new ideas for a product brainstorming" became:

"Sitting in the room for hours, chatting with colleagues."

"In a certain process helped to develop a new method of research." Has become:

"Do something chic to come up with great people."

Please be sure to specify what you did. Numbers help to show what you do. If you can not explain it in detail, then do not include that sentence, it will only weaken what you say, and will make me question what other accomplishments you have made.

Customize different resumes for different companies

If you apply for many companies at the same time, I suspect you will apply for these positions for the same reason. So use the same job application statement for each company. When different positions for different companies, you may need a completely different resume.

If this makes you think too much work, then your desire for the job is still far from enough. You know, other people will. If you care, spend so much extra time. If you do it right, show me your passion for the job, which will separate you from most people and make you competitive.

To highlight

Now that you have removed irrelevant content, you should have extra space to visually highlight important content. You may not be a designer, but you only have to make some simple adjustments in fonts and typesetting, and you will be sure that the person reading your resume will see what you want them to see. Make important content slightly larger than the harmony that makes you feel. If you have a good design vision, then you can also use some creative layout.

Once you have something you like, squin your eyes (literally), and you'll be wondering if the correct content is highlighted. This is really useful.

I like to see some photos, charts, screen shots, etc. in my resume, but of course it's only when these things are related to the position you are applying for. Do not put anything in the resume for aesthetic reasons.

in conclusion:

Now you should have a resume with the following conditions:

Can pass the 10 seconds test

Make irrelevant content short, people feel comfortable

Start your resume from where you are passionate about the job

These tips have helped some people, so I hope it will help you too. Please tell me if these suggestions have had any impact on you. You can find me on Twitter and Google ++.

good luck!

Note: These are my personal opinions and do not represent the views of my employer (Google). This is not a guide to teaching you how to find a job at Google. My method may not work for companies that are at odds with my values. I am not a professional career counselor either, so please use my suggestion.

Translation link: http://blog.jobbole.com/68651/