Your résumé is THE 1st impression – so make that 'blink' count! Learnings from Malcolm Gladwell

Blink.

Go ahead…blink!

Now you know exactly how much time it will take a person with your résumé in their hands to decide if they will read it, or not.

 The decision happens in the blink of an eye – and if that seems unfair, it is. But when it comes to marketing yourself, what you do to make your résumé stand out in the blink of an eye matters.

A lot.

Just ask Malcolm Gladwell researcher and journalist who was named one of the “most influential people” in Time Magazine. He is also the author of Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking. In his book, Gladwell explores choices and decisions that seem to be made in an instant – decisions that aren’t as simple as they seem.

In Blink, we meet a psychologist who (rightly) predicts whether a marriage will last, a tennis coach who (rightly) knows when a player will double-fault before the serve, and an antiquities expert who (rightly) recognises a fake artifact ‘at a glance’.

Gladwell draws the following conclusion: decision makers do not rationalise information, they simply “feel’ it.

And this (absolutely positively without a shadow of a doubt) is what happens between a recruiter and a résumé. The recruiter/hiring manager/employer feels your résumé, without thinking about it.

How does your résumé feel?

We work hard on our résumés. Too hard.

We cram so much into our résumé they become cumbersome, convoluted and complicated in their detail; and we miss thinking about the FEEL.

But a recruiter never misses the feel. SO much so that I will say it again: the first glance is all about the FEEL.

While this concept is easy to understand – it can be hard to achieve. We overwork our resumes because:

• It is hard to be objective about ourselves
• We are used to giving (and receiving) too much information
• We are used to filling out forms and are preconditioned to thinking every little (irrelevant) detail might be important. To somebody. Somewhere
•  We try to deliver too much

How can the recruiter feel anything when being assaulted by too much information?

You want a recruiter to spend their ‘blink’ BLINDED by WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR.

Period.

To achieve this, read the advertisements that you are interested in. Study them. Carefully. Repeatedly.

You wouldn’t renovate your house without first collecting some images of what you wanted to achieve, would you?

You wouldn’t pack a suitcase and get on a plane without knowing where you were headed, would you?

And please tell me you wouldn’t head off for a job interview without first googling the company that had the vacancy…

SO WHY WOULD YOU WRITE A RESUME WITHOUT FIRST COLLECTING A FEW JOB ADVERTS??

Think about your audience. Consider how you match their requirements.

And then write.

The name of the game is to keep it simple. Be MEMORABLY RELEVANT and DON’T SERVE UP A MESSY DISH. Remember?

A hiring manager or recruiter will not look at your résumé with an analytical thought at first, they will feel it through emotion. 

If you are not focused on a “good blink” and the feel of your résumé, you are doing yourself a great dis-service.

Remember you are not trying to be EVERYTHING to EVERYONE -- you are trying to create an IMPRESSION.

Work with it, not against it.

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