3 Strategies for Making It Past the Initial 5 Second Resume Scan

3 Strategies for Making It Past the Initial 5 Second Resume ScanIve heard it said various ways that you get a 5-, 7-, or 30-second anfangsbuchstabe scan from the hiring manager. I can tell you personally that when I was an HR manager and had 100 resumes to go through, my initial scan was about 5 seconds long, and I was looking for something to catch my eye. Here are the three areas I looked at when considering whether to invest more timePROFESSIONAL FORMATTINGWhen youre reviewing 100 resumes a day, the ones that really stick out are the ones in which you can tell the person invested time into creating. The professional and executive resume formats that were well-organized, easy to read, and perfectly laid out really made reviewing the resume easierand definitely caught my attention. When youre comparing a professionally organized and strategically laid out resume to a messy, unprofessional, and disorganized one, the choice of which one to invest time into reading becomes a no-brainer . After all, why waste time searching through a document trying to find the info you need when someone else has clearly laid it out for you?EASY-TO-FIND REQUIREMENTSWhen I posted a job ad online and was deluged with responses, I was appalled at how many people just shot me a resume that said absolutely nothing about the requirements that I had spent so much time writing to include in the ad. Normally, when I posted a job ad I would include REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS and PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS. At the very least, to even be considered, the person had to possess the required qualifications and the resumes that caught my attention were the ones that made it easy for me to see that they did indeed meet the requirementseither by listing them in the top or calling attention to them in a bold, underlined, or italicized font and placed throughout their resume. Want to put the nail in the coffin? Call attention to the fact that you also meet their preferred qualifications. Meeting the require d and preferred qualificationsand calling attention to this fact in your resumemakes you a perfect candidate for the job.COMPELLING, EASY-TO-READ CONTENTLong paragraphs on resumes serve one purpose and thats to lose the hiring managers attention. If youre using paragraphs with 5+ sentences then you not only lost my attention, but now the info I need isnt readily accessible its buried beneath an enormous amount of text density that I dont have the time to wade through. Keep it concise, cut out the mundane, and highlight your accomplishments. Dont go super crazy with the bold, underline, or italics, but use them when it fits, and use them to call attention to the most important information.Just to reviewheres how to make it past the initial 5-second scan1) Professional, polished, and well-organized format (colors and white space, goodmessy and distracting, bad.)2) Make it easy for the hiring manager to find exactly what he or she needsand to find it quickly.3) Keep the content concis e, and highlight the critical information the hiring manager needs in order to make the decision to call for the interview.Other strategies come into play when creating a compelling resume that will secure interviews, so if youre not sure your resume has the right stuffand if you havent heard of personal branding or incorporated it into your resumeit may be time to call a certified resume writer and get a resume checkup. If it means the difference between 3 interviews next week or 3 more months of job searching, you may want to consider speaking with a professional. For more information, check out http//www.greatresumesfast.com or call 800.991.5187.

There is No Magic Pill to Personal Success  Heres What Great Leaders Do Instead

Therbeie is No Magic Pill to Personal Success Heres What Great Leaders Do Instead Many women keep waiting. Waiting for their luck to change, their environment to improve or to suddenly discover the secret to success from some guru.Theres a lot of self-help, personal improvement and success advice out there. Anyone can give you a piece of paper with ten points to success. You can attend a seminar and get all excited and inspired about how someone else became successful (and this is very useful inspiration, of curse). But there is no magic pill.Theres no single tool or methodthatwill give you the answers.You know what you rarely see? The greatest entrepreneurs, leaders, and innovators speaking about shortcuts. They dont talk about the easy street to success because they know it doesnt exist.Jackie was a reluctant DrivenWoman participant at the start. Shed be late for the group meetings or sometimes skip them altogether. She didnt take part in the webinars or take part in the accountabi lity challenges. She saw very little results for being a member.Then one day she realised she could use these sessions as a tool to manifest her commitment to her goals. She changed her mindset from wanting the method to deliver her something and instead saw the opportunity to use the 2-hours a month with DrivenWoman as her window of opportunity to progress her dreams. Immediately she started to see real change.The only way to success is to commit to doing the workyourself.People feel better blaming the method, the tools and the overall lifes circumstances. My everyday life is so busy The tools are wrong and they dont work for me I picked a lousy course/seminar/book/blog/coach/retreat/podcast. When you believe in the magic pill, you spend your time and effort looking for something you think will work.Its easier to feel disappointed than to do the work.A better approach? Trust in yourself and put in the work. At the end of the day its about showing up to your own dreams and doing the work what matters. You can use any method or tool, or none, but only by showing up, being present and doing the work will you succeed.And thats what DrivenWoman offers, a structure to work on your own answers, month after month. This method suits many women because its repetitive and simple, and easy to fit into busy everyday schedules. The reason our members see change can partly be contributed to our LifeWorking method, but their success is really down to the discipline and consistent work to improve themselves.It doesnt matter what tools you use - the responsibility for finding success is with the seeker. And how could any method or course offer the answers anyway, we all have a different definition of success The sooner we choose our method, roll up our sleeves and get to work, the sooner the answers will come.Jackie said Im so motivated, DrivenWoman has put me in a completely different mind-set. I come because I see change.What structures do you use to help you to stick to you r goals?--This story originally appeared onDrivenWoman. DrivenWoman is an accountability club that helps ambitious women to achieve their goals and dreams by creating positive habits one step at a time. Thousands of women around the world have joined our program and are achieving their life goals, which range from entrepreneurial dreams to career change or simply being more confident in their own skin and enjoying life in the present moment.