Executive recruiters are on a mission: they have job orders from a client (the employer or organization who pays him) and his role is to fill that job order with the ideal candidate – not the pretty good applicant, or the person who has expertise that kind of sort of provides what the employer wants – but the absolutely perfect candidate.
Bear this in mind in order to not waste time and cause yourself frustration in your job search. Following are three factors recruiters consider when deciding to pick your resume (or not) in 10 seconds or less.
Recruiters may pick your resume if…your history is chronological, not a functional one. Too often times, candidates opt for functional resumes in an attempt to showcase something that seems different. Don’t do that. The reason the functional resume came into existence was to highlight functions regardless of time frames. However, translated another way (the bad way): you conducted these functions way back in history, so truly they’re no longer relevant to the position the recruiter is looking to fill.
Recruiters may pick your resume if…you’re in the same industry as the employer. The hard, cold reality is, if the employer is a manufacturer and you’re in information technology, even though the employer needs a VP, Operations and you were / are a VP, Operations doesn’t mean you’re aligned. There will be many candidates who actually have manufacturing background.
Recruiters may pick your resume if…your key words and expertise match. If the employer wants to fill a Chief Infrastructure Architect role, the recruiter won’t select a resume with expertise of “computer programming.” However, you can be chosen if your resume says your expertise is, “IT infrastructure strategy, scalability & capacity optimization.”
If you meet these criteria, submit your resume to all the relevant recruiters as seems reasonable. However, if not, take another path in your job search. Network in a way that demonstrates actual value – in other words, don’t just show up and collect as many contacts as you can. Or, contact a company you’d like to work for directly, especially if you see the company is growing. Spreading your eggs across many baskets means reaching a swifter, happier resolution to your job search.
