The 3 Challenges Every IT Hiring Manager faces when analyzing resumes. Make their lives easier, and they will hire you.

We get frustrated when companies ignore our job applications. However, we should consider that the same frustration attacks the hiring managers when they face a pile of CVs to read, invest lots of time, and can't identify the best candidates.

We tend to think of the hiring manager as an evil person who coldly evaluates us and decides whether we can be useful to them or not. However, they often are more interested in hiring the candidate than the candidate in being hired. The Hiring Manager's wish is to get a CV and quickly identify how its owner will bring value to the team.

When filling out our application, our job is to give them the information they want—no more, no less. If we succeed, they will hire us.

To understand how to do that, I've prepared these 3 challenges every Hiring Manager faces when analyzing CVs. By addressing them, we are half the way there.

Boreness

Imagine you have a pile of 30 CVs on your desk. You pick them one by one, but nothing catches your attention when you look at them.

Same format, same titles, same information displayed in the same way. If you want to get anything from them, you should start reading them as if they were books.

Most people don't even bother going through them. They just discard them and continue with the next one in the pile.

But the ones who read the "heavy" CVs face the next challenge.

Lack of clarity

Most candidates include the names of their positions or projects. No one outside that particular organization knows what they were about.

The same applies to niche-related terms. The person who will hire you may or may not be an expert in the subject you are applying for. But adding specific terms belonging to other areas you know won't help.

Unfortunately, many candidates think they send a better image when using complex terms. They don't. If I, as the responsible for the position, can't understand what you do or know, then I can't evaluate how much value you will add to our team. That takes us to the next challenge.

Difficulty to evaluate

I'm planning a Paris trip with my girlfriend. I'm overwhelmed by an activity as simple as choosing a hotel room for 4 days. The Paradox of the Choice is laughing at my face.

We've never traveled there. We see an infinite number of hotels looking alike, with similar pictures, reviews, and prices, located in neighboring regions. Each hotel may or may not have its advantages. But we don't know it. We don't have enough information to evaluate whether one is better than the other for us.

The same happens when evaluating CVs.

Every document looks alike. How would I evaluate 10 candidates with similar years of experience working in similar positions? Are they all the same? I'm sure they aren't, but if I can't see their strengths, achievements, highlights, and goals, I don't have any reason to choose them over the others.

Conclusion

Consider the challenges mentioned in this article when you are creating your CV.

Make the Hiring Manager's life easier. They want to hire you; you just need to give them some reason.

Some ideas you can implement:

• Play with the format. Don't stick to the same boring reverse-experience-timeline. Use colors and graphs to display the information in a different way.
• Highlight what is relevant to the position. Don't need to detail every position you occupied and every course you did. Aggregate the less pertinent data.
• Include achievements in your positions. Add something you are proud of. That shows not only your competence but also your values.
• Add the characteristics that differentiate you from your colleagues. Imagine you have 5 colleagues in your team today. Do all of you contribute the same way? How would a Hiring Manager who receives your and your colleague's CVs decide?

Start applying this article's advice, and you will Stand Out.