The job of a HR professional / recruiter is often tough. If the company that the HR is recruiting for is a popular one, then there will always be a lot of job seekers wishing to work for that company and very few jobs that are open in comparison. This means that the HR professional needs to sift through a ton of resumes and pick those that shine among the huge stack. I asked a few HR professionals what do they look for in resumes to help them decide to either toss the resume or call the candidate.

The Questions

1. What is main purpose of a resume from your point of view?
2. In general how much time do you spend going through a resume?
3. How important is the formatting and aesthetics of the resume?
4. What are the top 3 things that you look for when a resume first comes to your hands?
5. Do you prefer to see a cover letter with a resume? Why?
6. What kind of information do you look for in a cover letter of a resume?
7. In no more than 20 words, what advice would you give to someone preparing their resume?

The Professionals

The first HR Professional that I spoke to is Siju Abraham.

*Siju Abraham is a Senior HR Professional and currently associated with Altair India. He has a total of more than 12 years of experience in the industry. The secret of Siju’s success in his career is his belief in building long lasting relationships and unwavering focus on the important functions that Human Resources serve in an organisation.
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Answers from Siju Abraham

1. What is main purpose of a resume from your point of view?
   Answer – Main purpose of Resume is to brief the recruiter about the credentials of a candidate. Resume should contains the qualification and achievements of the candidate.</p>

2. In general how much time do you spend going through a resume?
   Answer – On an average, 15-20 seconds.

3. How important is the formatting and aesthetics of the resume?
   Answer – Formatting and aesthetics are important, depends on the choices you have. If you have multiple applicants and you have lesser number of positions, then you can always consider this as an elimination parameter. But in the other case, if you have lesser applicants, then you may ignore these kind of errors. Having said that, basic formatting should be done in the resume.

4. What are the top 3 things that you look for when a resume first comes to your hands?
   Answer – Job Title and Functions (Responsibilities) in the past jobs, Qualifications and achievements, a clean, easy to read format.

5. Do you prefer to see a cover letter with a resume? Why?
   Answer – I do not prefer to see a cover letter. Now a days all resumes are brief and we can make out more details from a resume than from a covering letter. May be for cases where resume run for many pages, then a covering letter is needed.

6. What kind of information do you look for in a cover letter of a resume?
   Answer – Past experience and qualifications.

7. In no more than 20 words, what advice would you give to someone preparing their resume?
   Answer – Resume should be brief, not more than 2-3 pages, try to cover all your past experience, major achievements and qualifications.

The second HR Professional that I spoke to is Balasubramanyam Ramamurthy.

Balasubramanyam is a Senior HR Manager at NXP Semiconductors. He has close to 11 years of experience in the HR domain. He owes his success as a HR to his ability to listen closely and understand the problems faced by those in the organisation. He is a great person to work with. He understands the business needs very well and stands by his professional commitments in all situations.

Answers from Balasubramanyam

1. What is main purpose of a resume from your point of view?
   Answer – Overview of the candidate’s educational qualification, experience, Projects worked. Resume should reflect the key skills of candidate.</p>

2. In general how much time do you spend going through a resume?
   Answer – 3 to 5 minutes to review the resumes.

3. How important is the formatting and aesthetics of the resume?
   Answer – Formatting is very important. It would be good to see the Strong points highlighted.

4. What are the top 3 things that you look for when a resume first comes to your hands?
   Answer – Technical expertise/Skills, Education Qualification, Other achievements.

5. Do you prefer to see a cover letter with a resume? Why?
   Answer – Not necessarily. Would like to see the resume in a page or just more than that, rather than running to few pages.

6. What kind of information do you look for in a cover letter of a resume?
   Answer – If a cover letter is attached, candidate can mention his educational qualification and historical working experience. Also, mentioning why the candidate thinks he is suitable for applying for that particular job.

7. In no more than 20 words, what advice would you give to someone preparing their resume?
   Answer – Resume should carry the candidates strong expertise area clearly mentioning his roles. In other words, it should be Short, Simple & Clear.

The third HR Professional that I spoke to is Scott Crowe.

Scott has completed a Bachelor of Psychology Majoring in Organisational Psych. & Emotional Intelligence, bringing a research focused approach to the table. Capable of forming ideas and solutions from concept to delivery around recruitment best practice, campaign (volume & tailored specialist search) & employee brand management.

Scott is a Senior Recruiter with Atlassian a Tech company based in Sydney Australia.

Answers from Scott

1. What is main purpose of a resume from your point of view?
   Answer – The main purpose is to provide a quick overview and initiate a conversation.</p>

2. In general how much time do you spend going through a resume?
   Answer – Before making a decision 15 seconds, once I am speaking with someone it is part of a 30-45 minute discussion.

3. How important is the formatting and aesthetics of the resume?
   Answer – Not so much the formatting or aesthetics, however, it is more important that you are succinct and make it easy to consume your CV rather than overwhelming your audience.

4. What are the top 3 things that you look for when a resume first comes to your hands?
   Answer – Length of tenure, Companies previously worked with, Projects worked on.

5. Do you prefer to see a cover letter with a resume? Why?
   Answer – No, it is not something that I utilise during the screening process.

6. What kind of information do you look for in a cover letter of a resume?
   Answer – Not Applicable.

7. In no more than 20 words, what advice would you give to someone preparing their resume?
   Answer – Be clear honest and explain your experience and the projects that you worked on that demonstrate this experience.

Is Your Resume HR Friendly?

One of the most important audience for your resume is a HR Professional. And making sure your resume is easy to read for a busy HR professional has to be your part of your resume design.

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