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By Steve Brearton
Illustration: Seth
Résumé play
Whether fresh out of school or a company veteran, you have likely thought about changing jobs during the past year. It all begins with your résumé.
10,000 Estimated number of letters sent annually by lawyers to discourage Canadian firms from giving poor references for former employees.
1,600 Estimated percentage increase in résumés posted online since 1996. Today there are believed to be more than 16 million résumés online worldwide.
159 Dollars spent by Canadian John Davy to purchase an MBA from an online institution to pad his résumé when applying to become chief executive of New Zealand’s Maori Television. Davy was fired two years ago after the fraud was discovered.
41 Percentage of Canadians who keep an updated résumé on hand, according to a 2002 study.
25 Percentage of job applicants who misrepresent their credentials, according to a recent Accenture analysis.
17 Percentage of Canadian workers who have posted a résumé online.
9 Percentage of executives who submitted résumés with spelling mistakes, according to a 2003 survey of international recruiters.
7 Number of résumés out of every 10 received by North American human resources departments that fail to match the job requirements.
5 Number of minutes executives say they spend reviewing a résumé they receive.
2 or 3 Appropriate length in pages for an executive résumé. Those that are “too wordy” rank top among recruiters’ complaints. | 
