Resume Review: What a Recruiter Checks in the First 30 Seconds

For twenty years I’ve screened resumes and trained recruiters to screen them. The first pass is short, and it follows almost the same path every time. If you know that path, you can review your own resume the way a recruiter will — before you send it, not after fifty applications with no answer.

What happens in the first 30 seconds

A recruiter opening your resume is checking whether you’re worth a call for this specific role. In roughly this order, they look at:

1. Your most recent title and company. Does your level and field match the role?
2. Dates. How long you stayed, and whether there are gaps.
3. Location and work authorization. Can you legally work where the job is, and will you need to relocate?
4. The must-haves from the job posting. They scan for three or four specific skills, tools or types of experience.
5. Evidence. Is there at least one result that shows you did this work well?

If those answers are easy to find, the recruiter keeps reading. If they have to search, most of the time they move on.

The ATS myth

Many people believe a robot rejects their resume before a human sees it. In most companies, an applicant tracking system stores applications, asks screening questions and lets recruiters search and sort. The person still decides.

What the system can do is scramble a resume it can’t read. Text boxes, tables, columns, icons and information placed in the document header often come out garbled. A simple one-column layout with standard headings is the safest choice.

Check your own resume: 10 points

1. The top third tells the recruiter who you are: a title line that matches your target role and a three- or four-line summary of your experience.
2. Every role has a title, company, location and dates in month and year.
3. If a company isn’t known in Canada or the US, one line explains it: industry, size, market.
4. Bullets describe results, not duties. Most of them have a number: money, time, people, percentage.
5. The words the job posting uses for key skills appear in your resume, where they’re true.
6. Length is one page for early careers and two pages for most experienced professionals.
7. No photo, date of birth, marital status or nationality. In Canada and the US they’re not expected and can work against you.
8. Your location and work authorization are clear. If you’re relocating, say so in the header.
9. The English reads naturally, with consistent spelling, and translated job titles reflect your real level.
10. Your LinkedIn profile tells the same story, with the same titles and dates.

What recruiters conclude from common problems

If the gap is the issue, read how to show a career gap on your resume. If you’re applying for a different kind of role, the hardest part is translating your experience into the new field — here’s how to do that in a mid-career change.

If your experience is from another country

A resume translated word for word reads like a foreign document, even when the English is correct. Recruiters in Canada and the US don’t know the companies, the titles or the education system, so they can’t place your level. Explain the scale of each employer in one line, use local titles, and if your degree is from abroad, mention an equivalency assessment if you have one. In Canada the most common is from WES.

How to get useful resume feedback

Friends and family will tell you the resume looks good. That’s kind, but it’s not a review. The useful question is a different one: “If you were hiring for this role, would you call me — and if not, why?”

You can also test the market. If you’ve sent 20 to 30 tailored applications to roles that genuinely fit and heard almost nothing back, the resume is very likely part of the problem.

For director, VP and executive roles, the rules shift: scope and business results matter more than skills. More on that in our guide to the executive resume.