Why are you wasting six seconds reviewing a resume?

That’s ten resumes a minute, 60 in an hour, and 480 in an eight-hour work day (assuming you actually spent all that time reviewing resumes). That’s what a recent eye-tracking study of recruiters by TheLadders.com concluded.

Sure, the study was obviously self-serving (TheLadders successfully showed that the resume formatting on their website was easier for recruiters to use than that of the profiles on LinkedIn). The observation is that recruiters and staffing coordinators charged with determining the “fit/no fit” of job candidates really don’t spend much time on reviewing individual resumes. In that six-second review, the average recruiter might be able to read seven, that’s SEVEN words – candidate name, title, company worked at, and maybe their last job start/end dates. Think you can read more? Test yourself here.

So, my question is, why are you wasting those six seconds reviewing a resume? You’re really not getting anything substantive about the candidate’s fitness for the job in six seconds, so why bother? After all, according to many, “the resume is dead” anyway (a Google search for that term came up with 56,200,000 hits). Profiles, such as those on LinkedIn, have really taken their place, at least for many professionals.

Nope, the reality is that your staffing software or recruiting software should be doing the grunt work for you of “reviewing” resumes. The data you’ve collected on candidates through all of your sourcing – including those “dead” resumes and through your social media channels – is the data pool you swim in most often. Then you plug in the criteria for the job and the software spits out a list of the most likely candidates that will fit the job opportunity. Then you set up interviews, present the candidate(s), fill the order/placement, bill the customer, and collect payments. Repeat for continued success as a staffing and recruiting professional.

I know I’ve over-simplified the process, but that’s the gist of it, right?

What I’m saying is that you probably shouldn’t waste those six seconds looking at a resume. If you’re not wasting time looking at resumes, think about how many more placements you might make using your recruiting and staffing software to find the most likely candidates. More importantly, you can work at what software can’t do – build relationships that help you better understand your customers and candidates and that in turn result in sales and fills. Then your software becomes an enabling tool to help you manage those relationships successfully.

Naturally, each of Bonds’ staffing and recruiting software packages can help you do that.

Plus, while Adapt, eEmpACT, and StaffSuite offer tools for the business of staffing and recruiting, each has its own specific feature/benefit sets, so I’m confident that one of them can fit the unique needs of your firm. Click or give us a call at 800-318-4983 to talk about how your staffing software or recruiting software should be making your life easier today. We’re here to help you stop wasting time and effort reviewing resumes – six seconds at a time.