I spend a lot of time looking at resumes and doing phone screens. Given that my company is receiving hundreds of resumes a week, it did not take long for me to identify a few easy things that applicants can do better. Below are 3 tips for job candidates.

Tip 1: Write a cover letter note specific to the job you are applying for

As a hiring manager, I have my pick of literally hundreds of applicants for a single position. In today’s job market, if I’m just looking for people with the hard skills required for the job, there are essentially endless options. Therefore I get to be much more picky than just finding someone that can do the job.

I want someone that wants the job; this job; the one I’m reviewing resumes for. If I can find someone that is not only qualified, but also excited for the position, I’m significantly more excited about the candidate. They’re motivated by more than just a paycheck. They want to come into the position and get good at it, quickly. They’re drawn by something more than the day to day; the mission of the company; the culture of the company, etc.

For me, not writing a note has a very real, negative impact on your chances of moving onto the next step. When I look at a resume without a note, I can feel myself actively looking for reasons to disqualify the candidate. Why? Because I really don’t want to waste 20-30 minutes in a phone screen with someone that’s just looking to get hired anywhere. Not only is it a waste of my time and the candidates time, but the conversations are often not very engaging. If you’ve written a note, at the very least I have an idea of what you’re excited about, and we can talk about that.

So what should this note contain? It’s pretty simple, but it’s not what most people think.

First off, it doesn’t have to be long. One to two paragraphs is all you need. Remember, I’m looking at hundreds of candidates, I don’t want to read a full page for each candidate. Keep it simple, and keep it short.

Second, don’t write about your skills and experience. I have your resume. I can see your education, skills, experience, etc. Instead, tell me what excites you about the position. Why do you want to work at my company, in this job? For example, my company, Redox, is solving a major problem in healthcare technology. When writing your note, tell me why improving healthcare is important to you. Or, if it’s not healthcare that calls to you, tell me why you want to work in a culture like ours. In general, take 10 minutes to read about the mission, the culture, the values, etc of the company, and make it clear why you’re excited to work there.

That’s it. I’ve seen notes that are 3 sentences long that get me excited about the candidate. It doesn’t have to be complex.

Tip 2: On average, I spend less than 1 minute looking at your resume

This is the reality of the job market today. There are so many resumes to review, you cannot possible spend more than a minute looking at each. So how do you make your resume stand out?

The answer is, you don’t. When it comes to the resume, I have a pretty good idea of the experience and skills I’m looking for. I don’t care if the resume is pretty or not, and I don’t care if you use action words, past tense, bullet points or short sentences. I care about your experience and your skills. Moreover, I’m likely skimming your resume pretty quickly. As long as the key points are written down in a way that I can read them, I’m happy.

I say this because I’ve been on the other side, creating my own resume, and I’ve stressed for hours about how to format it, how to phrase each line, what order to put things in, etc. I wish someone had told me at the time that it doesn’t really matter.

Rather than focusing on making your resume perfect, focus on researching the companies you’re applying to and writing an interesting note as your cover letter.

The one exception to this is when you’re applying for a position that will require to you create something visual. For example, if you’re applying to be a UI/UX developer, put a little time into making the resume look nice. You don’t need to go crazy. I’m not going to hire you because you can create a pretty resume, I’m going to evaluate your skills another way. But, I will be less likely to move you onto the next stage if you don’t seem to care what your work looks like.

Tip 3: Ask more questions than I ask you

At my company, the first step after resume review is to do a phone screen. Most people come into the phone screen expecting to be grilled on their previous experience, to talk through some examples of work they’ve done, etc. And yes, we may very well cover some of that. However, that’s generally not the main thing I’m looking for when in that first interview. We have more assessments later that will allow us to gage your technical skills.

Instead, I’m trying to understand whether your values mesh with the values of our company. Do you want to work in a place that will force you to learn and grow every day? Do you enjoy being challenged by your co-workers? Are you the kind of person that just implements the latest and greatest tool because everyone is doing it, or do you reason from first principles and make sure you’re coming up with a solution that actually solves the problem at hand? Are you focused on providing value to your customers, or are you just interested in doing your job?

So, I will certainly ask questions to get a sense of those things. However, it’s often not that many questions. It’s often 3 or 4 questions over the span of about 15 minutes or so.

When I ask what questions you have, I’m still very much in interview mode. I’m looking to see how inquisitive you are, and whether you’ve done your research. For example, don’t ask me what my company does; show that you’ve researched and tried to understand, then ask a clarifying question. And don’t ask me what our tech stack is; look on https://stackshare.io/ and come in knowing our tech stack, then ask which of the many tools we use are the main ones, or what the future direction of our tech stack looks like, etc. Read our careers page on our website, and come in with questions about our culture, the people, the way we structure ourselves, etc.

The most engaging phone screens I do are phone screens where I end up answering more questions than I asked. It shows me the candidate is really interested in making sure the job is a good fit for them, not just for us.

Conclusion: Do a little more work for a smaller number of job applications

Yesterday, I spent 5 hours doing interviews, and 2 hours looking at resumes. That’s 7 hours of recruiting tasks, and I have many other things that I’m responsible for in my job besides hiring. It can be exhausting.

And I know it’s just as exhausting, in a different way, as the candidate. I know people that have applied to 10 jobs a day for weeks on end without getting a single response. Endlessly searching  job boards, sending out your resume, and often not hearing anything back is extremely tiring if not demoralizing.

And it’s not lost on me that the 3 tips above are more work for you, the candidate. However, I do believe that it’s worth it to put in that extra work, even if that means applying for fewer jobs. From someone doing this a lot lately, it really does make a difference in your chances of moving forward in the hiring process.