Pop Quiz, Hotshot: Is anyone even looking past your résumé headline?

If you only had three seconds to grab someone’s attention on the street, how would you do it? Would you shout “Hey!” and risk having her ignore you or not realize you’re speaking to her? Would you ramble about needing to speak to him sometime soon about a great opportunity and risk having him immediately lose interest?

In the case of résumé headlines posted online to the major job boards, you’re lucky if you get that full three seconds of attention before the hiring manager or job recruiter has moved on to the next candidate’s résumé. It doesn’t take a ton of time to read 4 – 8 words and reject them for many varied reasons. This makes it vital that your headline expresses everything you need it to with just a few carefully chosen words.

Think about which articles you most want to read when you see a magazine in the grocery store checkout line. What is it that usually draws you in? Are they talking about the mysteries of the universe or have they just made an average topic seem must-read with a brief but exciting blurb? No, but you still flip to find that article while you’re in line behind a woman with two carts of groceries who’s writing a check to pay for it all.

We’ll start with what not to do. The following headlines are real. They’re also really bad. If you want to find any job at all, you will do your best to make sure your headline doesn’t even remotely resemble any of the following:

• "Accomplished Professional in the Business Field" (Really? Can you vague it up a little more for me?)

• "Administrative Specialist with six years of experience" (What is an administrative specialist?)

• "Design Professional" (Design in which field?)

• "Theatrical Set Painter" (Is that your only skill? The only position you’ve ever held? Seems like it.)

• "Scanning and Copying specialist" (You’re saying you posses mastery of common office equipment. Anything else you can do? Real work maybe?)

• "20+ Years of Experience" (Doing what exactly? Raising kids? Being a student? Playing Tetris?)

• "Professional Entertainer" (Nothing says “stripper” more than this headline.)

• "Recent graduate with consultant background" (Graduate of dog grooming school? High school? Hogwarts? Need the info!)

• "Team Player with two years experience in transportation" (Transporting mail across the country or being a drug mule for Columbian drug lords? Can’t tell with this headline.)

• "Hard Worker who Needs a Job" (Actual headline, remember. Who would read further than this, honestly?)

• "Legal counselor for two years (was fired)" (::click:: That’s the sound of me deleting this résumé from my in-box.)

Here are a few tips to get you started writing the right type of headline:

1. Keep it between 4 – 8 words. Anything longer than that won’t be read, and anything shorter than that won’t be taken seriously.

2. Avoid all CAPS. This should be self-explanatory, but you’d be surprised. Using all capital letters is the online equivalent of shouting. Shouting is rude. Therefore, using all caps is rude. It’s also juvenile and unprofessional. On that same note, be sure that every word in your headline is spelled correctly (just as you would double-check your résumé, you need to spell check your headline, too).

3. Avoid clichés. The goal is to come up with something as unique as possible that is still very descriptive. You want to differentiate yourself from all of the other candidates.

4. Cover all your bases. Your headline should tell anyone reading it exactly what they’d need to know about who you are as a job candidate.

According to a blog by Harry Joiner, Marketing Headhunter, it should look a little something like this:

Function / Company / Industry / Salary / Relocation preference.

For example: Email Marketing / Land's End / Multichannel Retail / $85K / Will Relo

Trackback for Marketing Headhunter: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/5057368

You can make a “Professional Entertainer” sound like someone people will want to hire, it just takes a little creativity and work. Try several different headlines on your résumés to track which ones get the best results!