Page 31 - Marky Stein - Get a Great Job When You Don't Have a Job-McGraw-Hill (2009)

Get a Great Job When You Don’t Have a Job

on your résumé against the requirements of the position that
you’re applying for. We may imagine that this is true, but that is
not how the human brain works. An initial reaction is always emo-
tional.

• Once I show you how to influence the person’s feelings
(emotions), thinking (cognitions), and actions (behavior),
you can bet that your phone will start ringing as expec-
tant employers want to meet you.

Winning the Reader’s Favor

To accomplish this, we’re going take a peek inside the employer’s
brain before you even set pen to paper to craft your document.
By mastering what the employer actually sees in the first seven
seconds of laying eyes on your page and how it affects the emo-
tional part of his brain, you’re going to learn how to keep him
reading down the page while other people’s résumés are
whirling in the paper shredder.

• Together, in this chapter, we’re going to answer the
question you may already be asking yourself: “What do
employers really want, anyway?”

In this section, you’re going to quickly learn what we now know
about how human beings read and process information. We’re
going to use these powerful pieces of what psychology tells us
about human perception to your advantage.
We’re going to harness résumé psychology to put you on the
fast track to winning an interview and getting a new job, and it
all begins in a fraction of a second. Am I saying that someone’s
mind can make a snap decision about my résumé immediately?
Yes!
Résumé psychology says that your résumé will be judged 80
percent on what the reader sees in the first few lines and about
20 percent on what appears in the rest of the résumé.
In fact, every single reader knows within just a few seconds
whether you are likely to help her meet her needs or are likely to
threaten her efforts.

18