What Do You Think Are The Best Days To Submit Your Résumé To Get Noticed?

By Jack J. Kelly

When you notice an attractive job that you like, you submit a résumé. Pretty simple, right? There’s not a lot of thought placed on whether it is actually the best day to share your résumé or whether or not you should wait for another day. In my opinion, based on my experience, there is a big difference in the days that could either result in your résumé getting lost in the crowd or being seen and attentively reviewed.

All days are not created equal, as it relates to submitting your résumé and getting the attention of a recruiter or hiring manager. I have detected noticeable patterns of which days the majority of people send résumés and the days your résumé stands the best chance of beating out the crowd.

It is common for people to experience the Sunday-night dread of going back to work. Sometimes, that fear and anxiety gets so bad that the prospect of going back to a job you hate becomes unbearable. To soften the pain, the person will search for and apply to jobs. This gives them some power and control over their circumstances. They may hate their job, but the possibility of finding a new and better opportunity gives them hope. Unfortunately, there are a large number of people who feel this way and Sunday evening becomes the prime time for sending out résumés.

For most people, even if you enjoy your job, Monday mornings are not usually pleasant. The weekend is over and returning to the daily grind isn’t particularly fun. It is exacerbated when the weather is cold, rainy, snowy or just plain miserable outside. Also, starting the week, you notice all the bad parts of your job. Your boss—who is always annoying—is particularly cranky because it's Monday morning and his favorite football team, the New York Giants, lost again on Sunday. He sadistically takes out his frustrations on you. Your co-workers, dealing with their own personal dramas, give you a hard time to make themselves feel better. You are still drying off from the dirty-puddle water that was splashed on you by a speeding Uber car, while you were walking down the street. It didn't help matters that your umbrella blew inside out from a strong gust of wind that soaked you even more. You start thinking and hoping that there must be a better way. Once again, similar to Sunday, these factors and feelings propel people to start sending out résumés on Monday.

By Tuesday and Wednesday, we settle into the routine. We either enjoy our jobs or resign ourselves to our fate. Those who are unhappy or just seek a better opportunity submit their résumés, but the flow ebbs a bit. On Tuesday, we tend to see incrementally more résumés than on Wednesday.

From Thursday to Saturday, the flow of résumés subsides. I attribute this, in part, to the tacit acceptance of people that they are where they are, and so be it. Also, by the end of the week, procrastination kicks in. The thought process is “I’ll ride out the week and wait until the weekend to start looking for jobs.”

Here is how you can take advantage of this trend. To significantly increase the odds of your résumé getting noticed, avoid the busy days of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. You don’t want your résumé getting lost among all the others. If you send out a résumé on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, there is a greater probability that a recruiter will see it and have the time to actually carefully review the document. I should also make it clear that any good, professional recruiter closely monitors their emails over the weekend, trying to catch a top candidate before their competitors find him or her. 

Dare to be different, stand out apart from the crowd and submit your résumé on the off days!

Please view my Forbes.com article here.

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