I spoke to the hiring manager of a major accounting firm who told me they can receive in excess of 500 professional resumes for a single job. She told me that reading through every resume is almost impossible, and therefore she makes her decisions within the first 10-15 seconds of opening the resumes. If she didn’t screen resumes this way, it would literally take her days upon days to read through every single application.

How to reduce 500 resumes down to the top 20

Presentation is important when it comes to resume writing. When you’re reading through 500 resumes you don’t want to have to search through resumes with a fine-tooth comb to find certain answers. Weird fonts, pictures and graphics make the resume harder to read and therefore increase the chance of it getting deleted. Bullet points, for example, are far easier to read than long drawn out sentences.

What you need to include on your professional resume:

• Relevant skills
• Employment history
• Industry experience (depending on the job)
• Measurable accomplishments
• Professional presentation and layout

How to ensure your resume will be deleted

• Long drawn out sentences for job duties and responsibilities
• Irrelevant information
• Lack of dates (don’t make the reader have to guess)
• Lack of professionalism (if the resume looks like it’s been written in 10 minutes, it says a lot about the candidate)
• Spelling mistakes

Distinguishing between a resume that was written by a professional resume writer vs. a resume that had been written by the candidate

When you read through enough resumes, it’s obvious to pick out the ones that have been written by a professional resume writer. Most of it has to do with the presentation and the format. From a hiring manger’s perspective we are only interested in the information contained within the resume. We are only concerned with hiring the right person and with what they can bring to our business.

Final Point

With competition for jobs at a peak and with online job portals in greater demand than ever before, having a professionally written resume can assist in the job seeking process. The resume is one of the most important documents you will ever write as it can potentially change your life. Just remember the golden rule. Your resume is a marketing document and needs to sell your skills. Once you have achieved this you are halfway towards your new job.