Reader-Centered Writing, In the first stage, In the second stage of recruiting

Reader-Centered Writing

In the first stage, employers try to attract applications from as many qualified people as possible. At this stage of recruiting, résumés are usually read by people who work in personal office.

To help understand the first stage, you may find it helpful to draw an imaginary portrait of one of them. Imagine a man who sat down to read a stack of 25-50 new applications that arrived in today’s mail. He doesn’t have time to read through all the applications so he sorts quickly those applications which merit additional consideration.

He quickly finds reasons to disqualify most applicants. Only, occasionally, does he read a full résumé. As you write your résumé you must keep in mind that it must quickly attract and hold that man’s attention.

In the second stage of recruiting, employers carefully scrutinize the qualification of the most promising applicants. Often this involves the visit of the candidates to the employer’s work place. The second stage reader of your résumé includes managers of the department you have to work for.

To represent your reader, you can imagine the head of department at this stage. This person is shorthanded and wants rapidly to fill one or more openings. When she gets the résumés, she knows precisely what qualifications she seeks.

Of course, some job searches vary from two-stage recruiting procedure as described above. If you interview at a campus placement center, you will probably hand in your résumé to the company recruiters at the same time you meet them

Deciding how you want your résumés to affect your readers: After you have identified the readers, you should determine how your resume will affect them in the job that you are seeking. More precisely, you should define how your resume will affect your readers while they read it.