TheLadders Reveals That Job Seekers Have Six Seconds To Succeed »

NEW YORK, March 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — According to a new study announced today by TheLadders, the most comprehensive job-matching service for career-driven professionals, recruiters spend just six seconds reviewing a resume before deciding if the candidate is a good fit. Despite most recruiters self-reporting that they spend at least four minutes reviewing a resume, the results revealed that they devote only a fraction of that time. Assessing dozens of professional recruiters during a 10-week period, the first formal, quantitative study of recruiters’ on-the-job behavior is available for download at TheLadders Blog.

“We knew that the resume is obviously the cornerstone of the job-search process, but we wanted to really understand and facilitate the most meaningful connections between recruiters and job seekers,” said Alex Douzet, Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder of TheLadders. “Our groundbreaking eye-tracking study provides valuable insight around a fundamental question: ‘How do recruiters and hiring managers actually make decisions about candidates?’ Now that we know, we can more efficiently and effectively help our more-than 5 million members find the right match.”

The findings provided specific data regarding the following:

– Individual resumes and online profile details, viewed by participating recruiters
– Specific items that captured recruiters’ attention during reviews
– How long recruiters spent viewing each item
– How quickly their eyes moved from item to item
– What content was overlooked

Using “eye tracking,” a scientific technique that implements technology to analyze where and how-long a person focuses when digesting information, TheLadders recorded recruiter behavior as they viewed online profiles, different types of resumes, and other forms of candidate information. One part of the study — “gaze tracking” technology — showed that recruiters spent almost 80% of their resume-review time on the following data points, respectively: name, current title/company, previous title/company, previous position’s start and end dates, current position’s start and end dates, and education.

On an ongoing basis, TheLadders conducts primary user-experience research and analyzes quantitative data provided by its more-than 5 million members to educate the company about current behavioral trends in the job-search process. TheLadders uses this research to gain valuable insights, which it uses to improve the customer experience and provide expert advice to the marketplace. The whitepaper detailing the eye-tracking study, including gaze-tracking and heat-map images, can be downloaded at TheLadders Blog.

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