Hiring People_ Recruit and Keep the Brightest Stars - Kathy Shwiff [15]
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THE BOTTOM LINE
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RESUME REVELATIONS
A resume shows just what the candidate wants you to see, yet when you read between the lines, it can tell you a great deal about the candidate’s skills, motivation, and character. The resume tells you much of what you need to know about a candidate:
Skills
Has the candidate done this job elsewhere?
Does he have the skills you require?
Has he augmented his skills with on-the-job or outside training or classes?
Did the candidate make a contribution with previous employers? Is he likely to do the same in your organization?
Character
Does the candidate seem to have the energy and confidence to do the job?
What is the evidence that she will be conscientious, hardworking, and determined?
Did the candidate stay with previous employers for long periods of time?
Does the evidence suggest the candidate will fit in and be a team player? Has she worked collaboratively in the past?
Will she be easy to manage? Has she job-hopped, which might suggest issues with previous managers? Do coworkers rather than managers comprise her reference list?
Will the company’s management style and corporate culture suit her? Is the management style or culture of previous employers similar to your management style or company’s culture or drastically different?
Salary expectations
Is the job’s salary range appropriate to his salary history?
Is the salary what he wants or needs to earn?
Do the benefits meet his needs?
Can the company afford him?
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Functional resumes are organized according to skills used or functions fulfilled and might indicate job hopping or gaps in employment, particularly for highly qualified executives who may have been downsized. However, this type of organizational style is not necessarily a red flag: It can also be used to emphasize skills that a person hasn’t used recently or to summarize the job history of individuals who have gained their experience in an assortment of diverse jobs.
Shaping Your Short List
If you have posted an opening on an electronic job board and are flooded with resumes and applications, you may feel overwhelmed. Many employers deal with the deluge by feeding the relevant information about the applicants into onsite databases that can be searched and sorted. These databases vary from sophisticated systems that use scanning, optical character recognition, and artificial intelligence, to simple systems that contain only manually entered information. Other companies enlist a resume storage service that stores information offsite. Larger companies may have hundreds of thousands of resumes in their database. If your company has such a database and if a human-resources staffer or other agent searches the database on your behalf, it’s especially important for you to communicate your needs thoroughly. Depending on the time you have for the search, you may prefer to give your agent broader parameters, so that you can choose from a wider selection of candidates.
At this point—or if you don’t have access to database search capability—you need to begin reviewing resumes and cover letters personally. As you do so, it’s a good idea to review the job description once again. Then scan the submissions for indications that the candidate has the qualities and experience needed to do the job.
If spelling and writing proficiency and attention to detail are requirements, reject all those resumes with spelling mistakes and typos. The editor who claims to have “prooofread” at her previous job may not be the proofreader for you. If initiative and motivation are required, discard submissions that don’t reveal specific interest in your company.
Some hiring experts recommend sorting