⏰ When is the best time to submit a resume? ⌚️
The short answer is 8:20 AM Monday to Friday of a business day. This allows the recruiter to ease into the workday at 8:00 AM before the zoom calls begin say at 8:30AM or 9:00AM. At 8:20AM, your resume is at the top of the inbox, it gives the recruiter the 6 seconds to read your resume to decide if you are interview material. If your resume is a winner, then the recruiter has a few moments to send a message to schedule a call with you as part of the screening process.
The long answer is below.
It is preferable to submit a resume between 8:00AM and before 9:00AM on a business day to be at top of the inbox first thing in the morning. If you submit a resume over the weekend, the recruiter will spend most of Monday reviewing the resumes that have come in over the weekend beginning with most recent (say Sunday night) to the oldest resume (Friday night). We do look at these resumes. If there is an overabundance of applicants over the weekend, and say we are only eligible to submit 2 resumes then the older Friday night resumes may be overlooked because we found our two perfect matches from Sunday night. The weekend resumes are usually great quality passive applicants, and the job posting is of interest to them.
Another answer is to apply as soon as the posting appears. This will be a fresh job and the early applicants will get high visibility by the recruiter or hiring manager. Please remember to configure alerts on job boards, companies that match your skills set, job titles that you are seeking.
Apply the same day of the new posting or within 24 hours of the posting. In a vendor management situation, there are 20+ recruiting agencies competing for the top 1-5 candidates per job. We have 48 hours to submit our candidates. The earlier we submit our candidates the higher rating the agency receives so we try to submit our best candidate(s) the same day or the next morning.
Submit your resume any time. By applying to the job then you have a chance to be considered. I love Wayne Gretzky’s quote, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. ? If you do not apply, then for certain you will not get the job. The worst thing that could happen is that you will not get the job, the best thing that could happen is that you will be invited for an interview and get the job. Your resume is still captured in the recruiter’s or hiring company’s database for future jobs. Perhaps the winning candidate had multiple job offers and did not accept this job, then you have another chance of being considered for this job as part of round two. Also, the job posting could represent more than one opening. Perhaps the winning candidate did not make it through the probation period and voila, here is your chance again! Believe me, after 14 years in this business I side with Wayne Gretzky, if you do not apply you will not get the job. If you apply, you have a winning chance.
Please keep in mind to keep a log of where you have applied, company, date, time, job title, job ID and location. If you duplicate your resume submission directly to the company and through an agency, or through two agencies then you have a high probability of being disqualified. Our agency requires our candidates to give their “Right to Represent” or ”RTR” via email before we submit so that there is no duplication. This is still contingent on the candidate keeping accurate records of their resume submissions.
Another note that I have mentioned in previous blogs is to please tailor your resume to the job description. If the job description requires you to have “bank”, “Jira”, ServiceNow”, please ensure that you have these skills in your resume and demonstrate where and how you have used them.
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