How Much Time Does a Recruiter Spend Reading Your Resume?

How much time does a recruiter spend? What's your guess:

1. Recruiters read the whole thing - They don’t want to miss any detail and want to learn more about you.

2. Eye tracking study shows recruiters look at resumes for 7 seconds.

3. One and a half minutes on the average.

4. Most recruiters spend about three minutes on each resume.

If you answered #2, 7 seconds, you are correct!

Sadly, for all the work that goes into creating a resume, it’s not actually read, in the sense that it’s a written document. It’s scanned. And sometimes it’s scanned by a machine using an applicant tracking system (ATS) software. This is why format, keywords, and action statements are critical for success.