Survey: How Much Time Do Recruiters Spend On A Resume?
In the first of our multi-part series, we survey recruiters and hiring managers to find out how much time they really spend reviewing resumes.
Survey Report
How much time do hiring professionals spend reviewing resumes? How about cover letters? Do they thoroughly read resumes from start to finish or simply skim them? Knowing the ins and outs to these sort of hiring habits is crucial when it comes to better understanding how to write an effective resume that will impress employers and ultimately yield more interview opportunities.
If the majority of hiring professionals are only willing to spend seconds on a resume, it may make sense for job applicants to focus on writing short and concise resumes that are designed to be skimmed as opposed to fully read. On the other hand, if hiring professionals are willing to spend more than several minutes on each application, this would favor the idea of writing longer resumes that exceed a single page.
To gain more insight on the topic, ResumeGo surveyed 418 hiring professionals consisting of recruiters and hiring managers between January to March of 2024. The survey questions and results are shown below:
How much time do you generally spend reviewing a resume during the initial screening process?
How much time do you generally spend reviewing a cover letter during the initial screening process?
If a resume is much longer than average, are you generally willing to spend more time than usual to review it?
Do you find yourself willing to spend more time reviewing an individual resume when there aren’t as many applicants applying to the job opening?
Does the amount of time you spend reviewing an individual resume depend on how interested you are in the applicant?
How often do you quickly skim a resume instead of thoroughly reading a resume line by line?
What percent of resumes get rejected by you before you fully finish reviewing them?
On a scale from 1-10, how important is it for a resume to be easy for recruiters to skim?
(Not important at all = 1)
(Incredibly important = 10)
What percent of resumes you review do you find difficult to skim?
Discussion
Hiring professionals spend less than a minute on the initial screening
Survey results showed that the majority of hiring professionals spend less than a minute on screening each resume they receive and even less time than that on the cover letter. While this may come across as a surprisingly short amount of time, a study done by TheLadders in 2018 found that recruiters only spend an average of 7.4 seconds reviewing each resume. This is a significantly shorter amount of time than even what our survey respondents reported.
They are willing to spend more time though depending on various factors
The initial screening time will inevitably be short, but survey results suggest that there are many variables at play here. When asked if they’d be willing to spend more time reviewing a resume that is longer than usual, 73% of respondents said “yes”. Survey results also found that respondents were willing to spend more time on each resume when there are fewer applicants and that the amount of time they spend is correlated with their interest in the applicant. These are variables that job seekers should consider when tailoring their resume to a specific job opening in mind.
It’s important for resumes to be easy to skim – however most aren’t
Over 70% of respondents said they either “almost always” or “often” skim resumes instead of thoroughly reading them. Most respondents also found it very important for a resume to be written in a way that’s easy for recruiters to skim. Despite this, a decently large percent of the resumes our respondents go through are written in a way that’s actually difficult to skim – meaning this is an area that many job seekers can improve upon with their resumes.
Methodology
This survey was conducted by ResumeGo using the survey platform SurveyMonkey. A total of 418 hiring professionals completed the survey between the dates of January 8, 2024 and March 1, 2024. Survey participants were individually screened to ensure they had recent hiring experience and resided within the United States. Incomplete survey responses were filtered out.
Are you a hiring professional? Share your expertise!
More surveys are to come and the more insight the better. We’re welcoming recruiters and hiring professionals to shed light on their hiring habits and preferences.
See other resume research we’ve done.
Data is used for everything, so why not for resume writing? See more surveys and field experiments we’ve conducted over the years that have influenced the way resumes and other job documents are written.
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