One of our goals at PCDN is to help our community develop the best materials to radically increase the chances of a successful application in the social impact space, and the resume is one of the most critical documents. Having a strong resume that is tailored to both a particular job opening and the employer can often make a huge difference in having your application moved from the huge pile of submissions to moving onto the interview stage.
This post is provides a number of actionable tips to ensure that make a resume outstanding. The recommendations spring from my many years of applied research on careers in change, many conversations with employers, mentoring sessions with PCDN Career Coaching clients and my students, as well my experience hiring many employees, consultants and interns.
Before jumping into the search for a social impact job, it is first important to consider what is the purpose of a resume?
A resumé is a document that tells a story about your previous, current and ideally future career path. No piece of paper can tell your whole story, but it is an essential document that needs careful crafting as well as regular updating.
A resumé will rarely be the sole factor for helping you land a first-round job interview, but it is a critical one. For many job openings in the social impact and social change sectors, a recruiter or program officer will often receive 100–300 applications (this is based on data from the Washington, DC area). This is a huge number and it is clear that even if a recruiter wanted to, he/she cannot devote significant time to reviewing each resumé. For example in one job search for a junior level opening where I was part of the hiring process, we received over 200 applications. If I spent 5 minutes per resume (not to mention cover letters), this means I would have needed to spend almost 17 hours just reviewing the documents.
The average recruiter spends 10–20 seconds with a first glance at a resumé. Of course your resumé may also never reach a recruiter or hiring official if an employer uses a computer applicant tracking system to do an initial scan which is becoming increasingly common in the fourth industrial revolution.
When I do hire, I begin with a quick review of resumés (I may glance at cover letters ,but that often comes later) and sort them into three piles including:
1) Strong candidates — These are applicants that will get a much more detailed review. They have a strong resumé, cover letter and meet or exceed the qualifications for the position. In my experience this is usually about 5% of all applications.
2) Needs a second review — These are candidates who have some intriguing factors and worthy of a second quick review. Usually the candidate will not meet all the required job requirements but comes close. This may be 5%-10% of the applications.
3) Shred and Recycle — There are many reasons why an application will not make it beyond this initial quick review including being significantly under or overqualified, having a resumé that doesn’t provide a convincing story or demonstrate appropriate skills/experience, having grammatical mistakes or typos in a resumé. This tends to be the majority of the applications.
After this initial review I will take a more thorough look into the candidates, explore the resumé and cover letters in more-depth. If the candidate is a strong one then often reviewing his/her Linkedin profile is a part of the process
Out of the top 20–30 applications, this is usually narrowed to a top 5–7candidates. Often short online interviews will be conducted with the top group and the top 3–4 will be invited for further phone or in person interviews. Some employers may skip this initial phone screening and go straight to a top group of candidates for screening.
It is important to understand if a job opening receives 300 applicants, only 1–2% of candidates might get an interview. This may sound like daunting odds and they are, but having the strongest resumé possible can help increase your chances of being selected for an interview. Of course it is important to emphasize that the resume is only one part of the process, it is also necessary to build strong professional networks, have a strong professional online presence, and of course have the skills and qualifications for the position.
Getting back to the story of you on paper or resumé.
Before you start crafting your resume some key recommendations include