Have you heard about the “infamous” six-second resume scan? Thanks to some “gurus,” job seekers swear by it and believe that recruiters only take six seconds to breeze through a resume before putting on their decision-making hats. (Autocorrect stopped us from calling it a six-second resume scam!)
Six-second resume scan — It’s a popular belief among job seekers that recruiters only spend six seconds reviewing a resume before making a decision.
But is there any truth to this commonly accepted notion?
In my quest to uncover the truth, I conducted several tests to understand how recruiters review resumes. Some time ago, I tried to find out the source of this myth, and you can read all about this here “Six Second Resume Myth.”
Oh, the irony! The company that created the infamous six-second myth spilled the beans and revealed that the actual time is 7.4 seconds (as of 2020). But trusting a “resume services” company that spreads these tall tales is a bit tricky. And I am not talking about articles and books promoting 7-second CV, 8-second CV etc.
This myth still survives because it works. Job seekers are scared that their resume is not good enough to beat some unknown enemy, which is why various resume services have applied this “study” to persuade job seekers…
