Not long ago, I spoke to a group of high school students about resume writing. My goal was to help them understand what resumes really are – a tool that allows companies to quickly eliminate people from the application and interview process.
I spoke with some experience, having been the resume screener at several jobs. When the company would run an ad and 200 resumes showed up in response, the first responsibility is to cut that number to something manageable. So I’d spend five to ten seconds with each resume, determining whether it went into the “maybe” pile or the trash.