Rob McGovern, Founder and CEO of Jobfox.com make a great point in this partial piece (sign up for these a jobfox.com):

 

Here’s the brutal truth: employers don’t choose candidates, they choose resumes. In a perfect world every candidate would be selected based on his or her strengths, interests, and overall fit for the job. Sadly, that’s not the way the process works. For most jobs, the “short list” of candidates is assembled based on a recruiter’s subjective opinions formed by reviewing a pile of resumes.

If the car market were like the job market, cars would be purchased from a pile of brochures. There would be no dealerships and car shopping. At Jobfox, we review tens of thousands of resumes each month, and it’s clear that most job seekers haven’t faced the reality of how the candidate selection process truly works. Most resumes undersell the candidate, and frankly doom them from the start. It’s as if they are trying to sell sushi by calling it cold, dead, raw fish. Simply put, it’s your resume that gets you selected.

Your resume is usually the first piece of marketing that companies see in your branding part of your Employment Plan.  My experience is that hiring managers review resumes on average for 7 seconds.  In line with what Mr. McGovern says here, you need to get their attention quickly.  If you seem to (honestly) have the skills for the positions you apply for, and aren’t getting responses, it may very well be the quality of the resume you are submitting. 

Some suggestions:  Use a simple font — Arial or Times New Roman.  Focus on accomplishments (and be specific), not just duties.  Get help — use a service like Jobfox or other firms can offer to revamp your resume, or at least go to an honest friend that has reviewed and hired from resume. 

Just my .02 for the day.