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New Zealand – Applicants have just six seconds to make a good impression

18 September 2014

Recruiters spend an average of six seconds looking at each CV that crosses their desk and New Zealanders are making silly errors that are costing them their dream jobs, according to a survey from US recruitment firm The Ladders, reports The New Zealand Herald.

The study uncovered the surprising statistic by using eye-tracking technology to find out about how recruiters read CVs and application forms.

Recruiter Emily Wheeldon, said she had seen hopeful job candidates ruin their six-second shot at a job with poor spelling and inappropriate information: “Your résumé is your first shot at really expressing your capabilities to a potential employer. If you don’t get it right, you’re going to miss that opportunity.”

Including a photo of a bunch of friends drinking on a Saturday, however, isn’t going to help, she added: “Personally, I like to see a photo of a person on a résumé because when I’m reading about that person it brings them to life. [But] we don’t want to see you with your mates out on a Saturday night or you standing there with a bottle of beer. Selfie photos are for Facebook and such like — they’re not for résumés.”

Ms Wheeldon said a common mistake on résumés was listing irrelevant and unhelpful hobbies and interests: “One of our pet hates as recruiters was, under hobbies, ‘socialising with my mates and shopping’. If you haven’t got any interesting hobbies, then just don’t put them in there.”

Another issue includes using inappropriate email addresses, like blue-eyes@hotmail.com.

Tom O’Neil, Executive Director of cv.co.nz, said people needed to think more about treating their résumé as a sales document rather than a list of work experience: “People need to consider that the first person to read their CV is usually someone from a recruitment firm or the HR department — they don’t know the ins and outs of the role.”