Does your resume pass the 30-second check?
Roxanne Calder
Recruiting season always sneaks back up the same way. As an expert recruiter and managing director of a recruitment firm, I can set my clock to the timing of each year.
Quiet Christmas tranquility, a light welcome pole–As the New Year and then Australia Day approach, we’re hitting the snooze button on hiring to steal a few extra days.
Before we knew it, school was back, and all systems are working. Receiving emails. Recruiters are re-emerging and LinkedIn looks busier than ever. You’re digging your new year’s resolutions, and somewhere between 3-5 on your list it says “find a new job”.
This is the reality of today’s recruiting world; You don’t need to go to the market. Recruiters and hiring managers come to you. So are you ready to be found?
What does ‘being found’ actually mean?
Research shows 80 percent of CVs don’t make it past the first screen. This is not a Cinderella and Prince Charming date. Hiring decisions are made quickly, under pressure and in a limited context.
Candidates are increasingly frustrated with hiring practices, and satisfaction scores have been falling since 2021.
It’s not about being more visible in the sense of social media, controlling your network, or even signaling that you’re “open to opportunities.” It’s simpler and less flattering than that. If someone is looking at you in the employment field, it’s a quick screening and means you can make a quicker decision about who you are and where you fit.
Employers are spending 30 seconds Browsing profiles. This means clearer signals are important. Make it easy to find.
What catches our attention
Clarity and relevance. Not fancy resumes with graphs, tables and complicated headlines. Hiring managers are looking for resumes that are easy to read and decipher: clear formatting, bulleted achievements, and text that draws your eye to the resume without you having to put in a lot of effort to interpret it.
As for titles, “Workplace Experience Curator” doesn’t show up in a search if the equivalent title at another organization is office manager. Your job title is not a branding exercise. If the recruiter can’t solve your job in three seconds, neither can the algorithm.
Seek’s senior economist noted in 2025: The number of applications per job posting has never been higher. It signifies record competition. Being “open to new opportunities” does not mean you are ready. It just means you’re one of them More than 100 applications is displayed. Participate in the hiring process and be involved 11 percent are deemed appropriate.
common mistake
This is where even talented people can get stuck. They think their experience will speak for itself. They expect hiring managers to grow and notice their ambitions, and they believe the rest of the story will follow.
But in the early stages of hiring, everything moves quickly. We have no chance to make a statement later. The cost of a vacant seat is high, and leaders are looking for hiring results. Profile reviews are quick and shortlists get smaller.
Not because standards are higher, but because understanding ambiguous profiles requires effort, time and resources. Candidates who are easy to understand move forward. Others don’t, even if they are just as qualified.
I interview people every day. I often see restlessness, fatigue, and a desire for change. But preparation is often not available. Hiring managers see the same thing: “Are you sure this candidate is ready to move?”
When asked why they are looking for a change, it is not that their job will suddenly become unbearable. But something has weakened. “Good but could be better!” like. Some people think they deserve more. This is often when people decide they are “ready.”
The problem is that this kind of preparation is largely internal.. The intention-action gap refers to the discrepancy between our intentions and our actual actions. If you want to be found, actions must match intentions.
This is often why tests or processes become longer and more deliberate, or why interviews are conducted face to face rather than online. Hiring managers want to see your commitment to the process.
What recruiting season really reveals
People enter this period every year thinking that the market will interpret them. Every year many people are surprised that this does not happen. Candidates are increasingly frustrated with hiring practices, Satisfaction scores have been declining since 2021.
However, being present does not mean being everywhere at the same time. It’s about being recognizable when it counts. Recruiting season does not reward effort. It does not reward intention. And it doesn’t reward how ready you feel for change. The market reacts to what is readable.
Roxanne Calder, writer about ‘Gaining Power: Overcoming Barriers and Building Wealth for Women‘ (Wiley $34.95), is a career strategist and the founder and managing director of EST10, one of Sydney’s most successful recruitment agencies.
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