I am a former Meta/Google recruiter. I think lot of people here do not understand how recruiters work, I wanted to share my thoughts. (self.cscareerquestions)
submitted 3 hours ago by PhuketRangers
I am a Tech recruiter, but I browse this subreddit a lot because it directly effects my job prospects.
I think a lot of people here do not understand how recruiters work, and what is really important. I have seen many posts on here where someone posts about how they are not getting hired, and people respond by saying their resume is not good enough and that's why they are not hearing back. And that you should spend lots of time tailoring resumes to jobs. I have looked at these resumes, 98% of these resumes are completely fine. I think people here heavily overestimate how carefully recruiters judge resumes. I never even read most of the resume, just skim for the information I need.
As a high volume recruiter working at big companies, you do not have time to spend lots of time on resumes. You are looking at hundreds a week and recruiters are generally pretty busy with other stuff like responding to candidates, attending prescreens with candidates, attending calls with hiring teams, and organizing. All they look at is your experience/skills directly relevant to the job, your work experience, and the type of companies you are working for. They are not spending time looking at formatting, analyzing wording, analyzing experience for more than 1 minute, often even less than 30 seconds. Its a numbers game for recruiters they are trying to get through as many as they can.
You are much better served with your time applying to jobs at a high volume than tailoring resumes to jobs. Right now in this market, the resumes that get looked at is a lot of luck. I look at the first 200 or so on a given job posting, the rest just end up applying too late and never get looked at. You are better served being the first to apply than to heavily tailor for given jobs.
Also another interesting thing I have learned with my 10 years of recruiting experience is that to never discount resumes that look like the person has not spent a lot of time on it. I have found some of my best candidates among people with just one or two lines for each job they have worked at, and their tech stack. Lot of very good engineering talent is cocky about their experience especially if they have worked at good companies, and they do not feel they need to spend time on their resumes. Its foolish as recruiter to discount these people just because they think spending time on resumes is useless or they are too cool to do it. Cocky is not a bad trait if you can back it up and hiring managers understand this as well.
TLDR: Making perfect resumes is highly overrated, recruiters do not look at it in a lot of detail, and you are better served applying in heavy volume and aiming to be some of the first people to apply.
<https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1bq2gu7/i_am_a_former_metagoogle_recruiter_i_think_lot_of/>
submitted 3 hours ago by PhuketRangers
I am a Tech recruiter, but I browse this subreddit a lot because it directly effects my job prospects.
I think a lot of people here do not understand how recruiters work, and what is really important. I have seen many posts on here where someone posts about how they are not getting hired, and people respond by saying their resume is not good enough and that's why they are not hearing back. And that you should spend lots of time tailoring resumes to jobs. I have looked at these resumes, 98% of these resumes are completely fine. I think people here heavily overestimate how carefully recruiters judge resumes. I never even read most of the resume, just skim for the information I need.
As a high volume recruiter working at big companies, you do not have time to spend lots of time on resumes. You are looking at hundreds a week and recruiters are generally pretty busy with other stuff like responding to candidates, attending prescreens with candidates, attending calls with hiring teams, and organizing. All they look at is your experience/skills directly relevant to the job, your work experience, and the type of companies you are working for. They are not spending time looking at formatting, analyzing wording, analyzing experience for more than 1 minute, often even less than 30 seconds. Its a numbers game for recruiters they are trying to get through as many as they can.
You are much better served with your time applying to jobs at a high volume than tailoring resumes to jobs. Right now in this market, the resumes that get looked at is a lot of luck. I look at the first 200 or so on a given job posting, the rest just end up applying too late and never get looked at. You are better served being the first to apply than to heavily tailor for given jobs.
Also another interesting thing I have learned with my 10 years of recruiting experience is that to never discount resumes that look like the person has not spent a lot of time on it. I have found some of my best candidates among people with just one or two lines for each job they have worked at, and their tech stack. Lot of very good engineering talent is cocky about their experience especially if they have worked at good companies, and they do not feel they need to spend time on their resumes. Its foolish as recruiter to discount these people just because they think spending time on resumes is useless or they are too cool to do it. Cocky is not a bad trait if you can back it up and hiring managers understand this as well.
TLDR: Making perfect resumes is highly overrated, recruiters do not look at it in a lot of detail, and you are better served applying in heavy volume and aiming to be some of the first people to apply.
<https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1bq2gu7/i_am_a_former_metagoogle_recruiter_i_think_lot_of/>
sincerely,