How to write effective CVs to 'attract' employers in the first 6 seconds

With a large number of resumes that need to be processed each day, it is difficult for employers to carefully see the information of each candidate. Therefore, most of them only spend up to 6 seconds to look at the resume, then make a quick decision on who will be lucky enough to be called to the interview.

Before such a situation, what would the candidates have to do in order for the employer to see their strengths in 6 short seconds? Should I use a lot of bullet points to highlight important information instead of lengthy sentences? Ignoring the achievement of the achievement, instead writing a generic or shortening job application by using only 5 key words and increasing the font size compared to before?

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Absolutely not! Your goal is really clear: Give employers a good reason to focus more closely on your resume, probably still within a 6-second period or they have to look at your profile. You are longer than other candidates.

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Here are a few clever tricks you can apply:

1. Attract attention with keywords

Many candidates have a habit of listing experiences using bullet. However, unless something is really attractive, otherwise, they never even look at the middle part (usually the central part) of your CV. Please accept that truth.

The trick here is to push the important parts that can use keywords to describe in advance , such as skills or achievements, focusing on your strengths in accordance with the job description and Surely you have arranged the information appropriately so that employers do not have to spend time searching for content that they will be interested in.

2. Use the title of the items in a tactical way

In addition to keywords, the names of the items are also factors that we need to emphasize. Write them clearly, focused and easy to understand . Even if you are bold, use fonts or flashy colors, the title is not specific, generic, the employer will not even look at it.

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For example, instead of naming the subject " Experience" , change it to " Teaching Experience" (if you apply for a teacher's position, education manager .), " Management experience" (if applying for managerial position, manager .); instead of naming " Skill" , change it to " Soft Skills", "Communication Skills", "Sales Skills" . depending on the application position and proficiency you have achieved OK.

3. Highlight the name of the old company

The emphasis on the old company is not a bad thing. In fact, that is the advantage on your profile.

If you've worked for companies like Facebook, Google or Alibaba, then surely, the employer will "have to" spend an extra minute or two to see if you've ever done anything there. Now, a great tactic is to bold or capitalize the old organization's name instead of italics and lowercase letters.

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4. Don't ignore your talents

You certainly have received a lot of advice on whether to focus on strengths, achievements and experiences that are relevant to your position when writing your CV or job application. This is not wrong advice. However, this does not mean that some outstanding talents (perhaps not related to work) are not valid.

If you have won the black belt of Taekwondo or a "skate" roller skater, you should boldly put them on your resume. These are very interesting information that many employers are often attracted to because they think that candidates may have special characteristics.

About the author : Lily Zhang is a professional development specialist at MIT ( Massachusetts Institute of Technology)   - where she works with a lot of students from new graduates to PhDs to help them achieve their job expectations.