Fast and easy RESUME scanning for top results
You have advertised for that most important position in your company and you are now receiving resumes from all sorts of sources including newspaper ads, your Internet site, your colleagues and your recruiting partners.
Your time is pretty limited. Meanwhile, dozens of resumes lie in your in-tray waiting for your attention. Not an enviable task! To help you make this process as painless as possible may I recommend the following approach and steps:
In my recruiting work, I simply discard sloppy resumes. You will find that, in most circumstances, these letters come from candidates not worth considering anyway.
In addition to a good resume, I would rate highly an introductory letter in which the candidate introduces himself with a summary of his major achievements to date.
Past performance is the best predictor of future performance. This is the principle we advocate in our “Hiring Top Performers” workshops. You will need to concentrate on the candidate's last 3-4 major achievements over the last 5-10 years. These achievements should be comparable to the position you have advertised. We recommend 70-80% past comparable performance, not identical performance.
Candidates who have moved successfully from position to position and have performed successfully in their new positions are definitely worth considering. Do not discard candidates who come from other industries but with comparable performance. As a matter of fact, experience in other industries could bring in excellent new skills and a fresh outlook.
You cannot expect someone who has been working in very small business to, suddenly, work for a large conglomerate in a senior role. Neither can you expect someone who has only managed 2-3 people to be successful in a position that requires direct or indirect management of 50 people. There are exceptions to this but on average this is a wise approach.
Turnover can be a big concern. Candidates who have a history of too many jobs
and short tenures most certainly are good at getting jobs but not good at doing
a good job. However, I would not discard those who have been caught in
retrenchments through reorganization and rationalization. Someone else's loss
could be your gain.
Look for instances of continuous self-improvement gained outside the traditional schooling system. This kind of activity shows the person has enough energy and is proud to keep on enhancing her knowledge and skills.
A final point: do not discard those who have been caught in retrenchments through reorganization and rationalization. Someone else'ss loss could be your gain.
If you apply the above, you should be able to scan a resume within 2-5 minutes depending on how much relevant content it contains for the position you have advertised.
Within a very short time you should cull the dozens of resumes to the 5-10 significant ones worthy of further consideration. Your real work begins now. You must go through phone interviews, face to face meetings, panel meetings, etc to select your finalists.