For today’s job seekers, the environment of the professional world can be quite daunting, as what is expected of an applicant has drastically changed.
Putting together a resume is now a far more complicated task than it used to be, and the standard one-page length and outline may not be enough for employers who are searching for candidates who can distinguish and advertise themselves.
According to a recent report published by LiveCareer an online resume and job search consulting service, the average resume has nearly doubled in length to two pages, and the average word count has increased from 312 words in 2018 to 503 words in 2023.
Yet, employers don’t want to see everything in an applicant’s job history, as they are mainly looking for experience that is relevant to the position and gives them a quick sense of what someone can offer as an employee.
In this competitive environment, it can a considerable challenge for people to meet expectations on their resume, whether it be in terms of experience, marketing yourself well, formatting things correctly, or all of the above.
“Over the last five years, the employment landscape has changed, and so has the way job seekers write resumes,” said Eric Ciechanowski, a career expert at LiveCareer.
A survey from CareerBuilder, also a job consulting platform, found that when a resume reaches a human resource manager, more than a third of them spend less than a minute looking at it initially, and approximately one in five spend less than 30 seconds.
For some people, their resume might not even make it to a real person, as there is now automated-hiring technology known as Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), which filters out applications and resumes that employers receive for a single open position.
Today’s resumes have several crucial components which are fundamental, including contact information, professional summary, work experience, skills, and education, but the number of applicants who add extra sections has doubled, according to the LiveCareer report.
As the number of job seekers adding these features increases, so does the number of employers who normally seek those elements on resumes.
According to CareerBuilder, more than a third of human resource managers said they preferred having skills listed first on a resume. Not all your skills and achievements, just the ones that are most relevant to the job you seek.
As one expert put it: it’s a job application, not your obituary .Keep it focused.
