What is your resume worth?

Until we live in a society as depicted in Star Trek where money doesn’t exist and people forgo working for personal gain in exchange for working to benefit society as a whole, money will be at the root of every business to business, business to consumer, and person to person transaction worldwide.

Although I can’t see that changing any time soon, I find myself fascinated with the idea of what things are “worth” to people, especially in our rapidly evolving world where we are more connected, and have more access to each other than ever before.

My first conscious memory of learning about the concept of worth happened in the winter of 1989.

Instead of being a “normal” kid growing up in Southern Ontario, I decided to learn piano and collect hockey cards as opposed to learning to skate and put my parents through hockey arena hell for 7 months each year.

I walked home from the Fergus Farmer’s Market on a cold Saturday morning with a handful of packs of O-Pee-Chee hockey cards and absolutely none of my paper route money.

When I returned home, to my surprise and joy I found that I just landed a Brett Hull rookie card (and a piece of gum) when I opened one of the packs.

If you’re not a hockey fan, whom that is really doesn’t matter at this point, but know that in that moment I was pumped!

I remember sharing with my dad that I was going to be rich one day because of that card – it was worth $14 at the time, and I just hit the lottery!

All I had to do was wait it out for a few years, sell it to some collector on my 16th birthday and then buy a Porsche.

I had a plan, and that plan was bulletproof.

My dad’s response to my plan:

“I’ll give you six bucks for it, right now”.

I was stunned.

He then followed up:

“Son, it’s great that you’re excited but this is an important lesson for you to learn. That card is only worth what someone else is willing to part with for it, so you better keep it in good condition and find someone that wants it a lot more than you”.

I still have that card in a glass case somewhere, though the memory and the lesson has proved to be far more valuable to me than the $52-$270 the card is going for today.

Fast forward 29 years and I find myself entering the 15th year of my career in the talent acquisition space.

15 years of seeing 100 people send 100 other people copies of their resume every single day.

When I think about the math behind all of the resume transactions I have seen over the years, I can’t help but scratch my head and wonder what all of those transactions were worth.

Coming back to my dad’s advice, “something is only worth what someone else is willing to part with for it…”.

So, why not dive in and explore this! :)

What is your resume worth?

In every transaction, there are ultimately two parties – the buyer and the seller.

In the case of our resumes, we’re the seller and the Recruiters that we’re approaching and/or engaged with are the buyers.

It’s very easy and natural to fall victim to endowment effect and assign a greater value to our resume than we should, because we deem it to be reflective of our life’s work up to that moment in time. The reality however, is our resume is really only a conversation starter, and is only worth something to a Recruiter – for (on average) 6 seconds.

6 seconds.

That’s literally it.

In other words, the average Recruiter decides to either engage a job seeker/candidate in a conversation or pitch their resume in the digital/actual trash within 6 seconds of laying eyes on it.

I mentioned above that the math behind all of this made me scratch my head. 

The math is actually quite simple.

According to a variety of compensation related websites, the average Recruiter in the USA and Canada earns around $55,000 per year in local currency. Yes, many earn more and many earn less, but broad strokes, the average comes in around $55,000 per year.

Assuming – and yes, some of these assumptions are dangerous but stick with me on this - the average Recruiter works 8 hours per day, 250 days per year, that means:

Your resume is actually worth: 

A whopping total of... $ 0.046 (rounded up)

Less than a nickel.

Let that sink in for a minute. 

…

Regardless of your education.

Regardless of your work history.

Regardless of your accomplishments, and

Regardless of how many hours you spent painstakingly perfecting your resume…

It’s still worth less than a nickel to the average Recruiter.

…

Fear not.

You have the opportunity to maximize your 6 seconds by doing your homework, identifying organizations that share your values, pro-actively building relationships with your potential future colleagues and by being more selective with whom you share your resume.

Although relationships can’t yet be quantified, I have a sneaking suspicion that if they could, they would worth more than a nickel.

At least until we all live in the outer galaxies of the universe. :)

****

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About the author:

Regarded as one of the top talent acquisition and employer branding professionals in Canada, John Fleischauer has proven himself to be a disruptive thought leader, TEDx speaker, and hiring expert. As the Chief Operating Officer of Pivot + Edge, John helps organizations build sustainable hiring capability so they can consistently hire great people quickly and cost-effectively. 

To book John for your next event, or if you would like to provide ideas for future posts, feel free to message John directly on LinkedIn/Twitter. He accepts all invites to connect and does his best to respond to all messages within 24 hours.