How much time do recruiters or hiring managers spend reviewing your resume, on average?

Studies have previously come out with results of 4-5 minutes, when you ask hiring managers how much time they spend.

That’s self-report data. Is it reality?

It’s BS

A recent eye-tracking study found something a bit different.

That’s right.

Especially when there are tons of candidates, you’d better not be under the delusion that the fine points of your work experience buried deep in a paragraph are going to be noticed. They are not.

Formatting Matters

This is the reason why formatting matters.

If this blog post were one big paragraph with no headings or white space, nothing to break it up, would you be reading this? No!

Check out this composite eye-tracking heat map from the report and notice:

1. Attention shifts from section to section when clear indicators exist.
2. Easily seen headings guide viewers down the page.
3. Long blocks of text cause fatigue, with the result of viewers giving up before the end.
4. The shorter, the better. A 1-page resume is better than a 2-page resume.

Leave a comment or question, and check out my online project management career training, where I teach you about this stuff.

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