Before you ever meet hiring manager, you’ll likely be assessed by an internal or external recruiter. These folks are the first ones to wade through the initial pile of resumes and who decide which candidates get to move forward in the hiring process. If you’re smart – and, of course, you are – you’ll take great care in preparing your resume to get the optimal bang for the buck when it reaches these people. After all, big-company recruiters have to review hundreds of resumes for a single job posting, so they often can devote only seconds – not minutes – to each one. Here are five stories that will help you set up your resume in a way that gets the first-line screeners to pay attention.

• What Recruiters Look For in a 6-Second Resume Scan

• Recruiter Critiques a Project Manager/Developer’s Resume

• An IT Recruiter Critiques a Grad’s Programmer Resume

• Electronic Arts Recruiter Critiques a Coder’s Resume

• What Cat Found Inside a Recruiter’s Head