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It’s no secret that your resume is your most important professional document, and the key to your career success. A good resume opens doors for you. A not-so-good resume will keep you out of the game entirely.

But how do you to stand out in a sea of qualified applicants and catch the attention of a recruiter or other human resources?

Is my resume recruiter friendly?

What’s the Recruiter Friendly Test and will your resume pass?

A recruiter’s job is to identify, attract and land the best talent available for their clients and companies. Recruiters are under pressure to do their job with speed and accuracy. Resumes are given a 10 second scan to determine whether the door will be opened or closed for further consideration.

Your resume will not pass the “Recruiter Friendly Test” if any of the following are true:

1. Your resume is too long. Two page resumes are ideal. A three page resume is acceptable for senior level individual contributors and executives with 15+ years of experience. Four-plus page resumes take too long to scan, and no matter how great the candidate is, often their resume will be overlooked.
2. You have a functional resume. Recruiters strongly prefer resumes written in reverse chronological order, period. When a recruiter sees a functional resume, red flags go up. Recruiters immediately assume that the candidate is trying to hide something. Functional resumes are impossible to scan and that annoys recruiters. Recruiters tend to disregard or delete functional resumes immediately.
3. Your resume is over the top with gimmicks, video and formatting. Resumes that include videos and/or require that you click to a website to see resume content cannot be scanned in 10 seconds or less and therefore are not recruiter friendly. For candidates with portfolios (writers, graphic artists, web designers, etc.) adding links to AUGMENT your resume is acceptable. Otherwise, “Nope. Nope. Nope.” says Dawn Rasmussen, Certified Advanced Resume Writer and owner of Pathfinder Writing and Career Services.
4. Your resume is too short. While a short resume can easily be scanned in 10 seconds or less, if the resume does not contain enough information to compel the recruiter to dig for more details about your background, it will be deleted without further adieu.