Hiring Best People - Lesson 2

Screening Résumés

A sizeable pool of applicants assures that you will have choices in the hiring process; it also means that you’ll have more sifting to do in finding the best choice. And that sifting begins with résumé screening (see “Tips for Screening Résumés”).

Tips for Finding the Right Person

• Consider current employees.

• Look outside your organization to bring in new outlooks, skills, and experiences.

• Know what kind of person you’re looking for in order to locate a good fit.

• Remember that a person’s past job performance is the surest guide to future performance.

• Remember that the right education + the right experience + a compatible personality = a good fit.

• Beware of the “just like me” trap.This trap encourages managers to favor candidates who share similar education backgrounds, are of the same age, gender, or race, and who enjoy the same pastimes.To avoid the trap, focus on the objective requirements of the job and the candidate’s qualifications.

The cover letter and résumé are the candidate’s first introduction to you. In order to merit your further attention, they should convey the qualities you are looking for.When you have a large number of résumés to review, use a two-pass process to make your task more manageable. In the first pass, eliminate the résumés of candidates who do not meet the basic requirements of the job. In the second pass, look for résumés that include:

• signs of achievement and results—for example, a profit orientation, stability, or progressive career momentum;

• a career goal in line with the job being offered (be on your guard here, as applicants are often coached to tailor their purported career goals to match those of jobs to which they’re applying); and

• attractive overall construction and appearance.

In this pass, also consider the subtler differences among qualified candidates—for example, years and quality of experience, technical versus managerial backgrounds, the quality of the companies they have worked for in the past, and so forth. Then develop a list of the strongest candidates.

When reviewing résumés, be on the alert for red flags that can indicate areas of weakness such as:

• lengthy description of education (possibly not much job experience);

• employment gaps (what was the applicant doing during these gaps?);

• a pattern of short-term employment, especially after the applicant has been in the work force for more than a few years;

• no logical job progression;

• too much personal information (possibly not much job experience); and

• descriptions of jobs and positions only, with no descriptions of results or accomplishments.