Do Better Looking and Better Formatted Resumes Get More Interviews?

From our vantage point, the visual appeal of a resume has a huge impact on whether an employer puts a resume on the “To Be Interviewed” pile.

How do we know this?

We work with thousands of companies, and this gives us a front row seat to see which resumes they choose. Without question, they show favoritism to the best designed, formatted and written resumes. The poor resume quality issue is reaching unprecedented proportions within our young professional ranks. Unlike baby boomers who were trained and groomed in such subjects as business correspondence, letter writing and word processing, today’s young professional has lived nearly their whole life in the less formal world of email, text and instant messaging.

If the typical baby boomer has written 500 formal business letters on company letterhead, the typical Gen X/Y professional has maybe done this once or twice in their career.

The thing is, today’s young professionals have very unique skills that employers find extremely valuable. However, their resumes are often unable to articulate these skills and ultimately it holds them back.

Why does this matter?

We used to live in a boom where jobs were plentiful and skilled people were in short supply. That’s completely reversed now. Employers are telling us that they’re getting 300-400 resumes per position, and they’re having trouble keeping up with this flood.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of a human resources professional at a company. Chances are, you’d be a baby boomer, which means you’ve been trained and groomed in the art of well written documents. This stuff matters to you. What are the chances you’re going to choose a poorly worded and formatted resume as you skim through that pile of 300 resumes? Wouldn’t you be looking for convenient reasons to cut down the size of that resume pile?

So do you need a prettier resume?

It would be easy for us to think that everyone favors substance over style, although that would be a fatal miscalculation in the job search process. The gatekeepers at America’s corporations expect fit, finish and polish from the first moment they come in contact with you or your resume.

When an A-player submits a “C” resume, they’ve put themselves at a huge disadvantage. I hope this advice will cause you to reread your resume and ask yourself whether it would be the one picked out of a pile of 300 resumes.