Why Your Resume’s Top Third Matters More Than You Think

Finding it difficult to get a call back after submitting a job application? You’re not alone. Job openings (even those that are entry-level) regularly receive hundreds of applications, and for more competitive fields like software engineering or positions that are remote, there might even be thousands of applicants all vying for that position. For this reason, hiring managers typically spend about six seconds scanning each resume before moving on to the next one. That’s not much time to leave an impression, which is why the top third of your resume (what appears “above the fold”) is your first and often only chance to catch their attention. Your resume’s opening is your elevator pitch… if it doesn’t immediately convince the reader that you’re worth reading further, nothing else is ever going to be seen.

The “6-Second” Test

Take a moment and count to six. One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six… That’s how long you have to make your impression with a recruiter. In that time, the recruiter is primarily going to be looking at your professional summary, and the company names and job titles in your work experience. If you’re a student without any work experience, instead, they’re going to be looking at the names of the universities that you attended and the programs that you attended. For the most part, though, this is where your professional summary can do all the heavy lifting of convincing the recruiter that you’re worth paying attention to. The importance of this section cannot be understated. Your professional summary should be clear, concise, and quickly outline who you are, and the value you offer, which is the template that I want you to use as you draft yours.

First: who you are. Second: the value you bring. For example, “Strategic finance professional with expertise and treasury and finance operations,” or “ Aspiring business administration student with an interest in entrepreneurship and biotech,” or “ Enthusiastic marketing professional with extensive experience in e-commerce management and digital marketing methods.” Whichever direction that you hope to go with your professional summary, ensure that it is at least somewhat relevant to the field or industry that you are trying to get into. Remember, you might be up against hundreds or thousands of other applicants, many of which will have put in the work of creating a resume specific for the given role. It’s always better if your resume— and by extension, your professional summary— is tailored to the job.

Being ATS Friendly

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are widely used due to the workloads that modern recruiters face. What this means is that, perhaps most of the time, the first person to read your resume is a computer. However unfortunate this reality might be, it is reality after all, and job applicants simply have to adapt to this system. In order to be competitive against other applicants, this means that you must use keywords relevant to the desired role in very prominent locations on your resume to ensure that it passes any automated scanning technology.

Using the job description as your North Star, spend five minutes researching the specific skills, software, procedures, and processes that are or might be relevant to the job. Choose at least ten and integrate them into your resume as seamlessly and as smoothly as possible. Be strategic. Place these keywords naturally throughout your professional summary, work experience, and skills. Resist the temptation to simply list them back to back as ATS (and human readers) will recognize and penalize such tactics. Instead, do your best to contextualize each keyword with real examples to the greatest extent possible. The more genuine, the better.

Capturing Attention with your Highlight Reel

Whether you’re a student just graduating college or a mid-career professional looking to pivot into a different industry or move on to newer opportunities, everyone has a highlight reel. When I say highlight reel, I am referring to the specific projects, achievements, or experiences that you were involved in, or responsible for, that you are the most proud of. The challenge as it pertains to your resume, is that it’s not always very easy to communicate the contents of this highlight reel in this format. This is especially true when you consider that you need to prioritize experiences with quantifiable, measurable outcomes over those that are more qualitative in nature.

For example, a marketing professional might highlight the fact that, due to their efforts at revamping e-commerce conversion attribution, they improved attribution tracking by 50%. For a recent chemical engineering graduate, they could mention that during their internship, they optimized a production process reducing manufacturing waste by 20%, saving the company $30,000 annually. Similarly, a computer science student might highlight how they lead a senior year capstone project developing a mobile app that received over 1,000 downloads in its first month. The point is clear: specific actions leading to specific outcomes (ideally quantitative) tell a far more compelling story than a vague list of job responsibilities or courses taken at university.

Conclusion

The top third of your resume will make or break your application. You should think of it as an elevator pitch for yourself to the world. You may even know that you’re the best candidate ever for a position, and you may even have every accolade imaginable, but if the top third of your resume doesn’t “convert” the reader, nothing else will matter. Want a super easy test? Show your resume to a close friend (someone whose judgement you trust!) using the aforementioned 6-second test. Does your message come across clearly? Do they think it’s worth reading on? Stand out, be unique, give those recruiters a really good reason not to throw your resume in the trash. Now go land that job!