The first six seconds

The "six-second scan" gets quoted a lot, usually to scare people. It's roughly true, and it isn't the whole story — a promising CV gets a proper read afterwards. But the first pass decides whether there is an afterwards.

So what lands in those seconds? Your name and current or most recent title. The shape of the page — is it calm or crowded? The first two lines of your top role. Company names, if they're recognisable. And a general read on seniority.

That's about it. Notice what's missing: your carefully worded profile paragraph, your skills grid, anything below the fold on page one.

Three things follow from this. Put your strongest, most relevant evidence in the top third of page one, not the bottom of page two. Make your most recent role unmistakably clear in its first two lines — title, scope, one result. And give the page air; white space reads as competence, density reads as anxiety.

You're not writing for the six seconds. You're writing so the six seconds buys you the six minutes.