When starting the hiring process, the first step is to define what your ideal candidate will look like BEFORE collecting resumes. As we know, it can be very time-consuming sifting through hundreds of resumes. In theory, it makes sense to look for ‘the best’ possible candidate and set up an interview immediately – but as a business owner, we know that’s not always the case. The reality of the situation though, is that everyone has seen how steep a price you could pay for judging a book by its cover.
This is where our expertise comes into play – we know the market and we know the indsutry. We know what to look for in rockstar talent and we know how to get you the best possible candidates.
One step to avoid when looking through resumes: misleading writing.
The truth is some people are excellent writers and know just how to make something sound good on paper. They highlight all the best things by strategically listing and describing their responsibilities and abilities at previous jobs. There is nothing wrong with a well written resume, in fact everyone should have that. But the number one thing to keep in mind while looking through resumes is the fact that things aren’t always what they seem – that’s why we have a multi-step interview process before the candidate even makes it to you.
The same is true for the opposite. Most people aren’t such good writers, and they probably didn’t hire a professional to write their resume for them. This opens them up to grammatical and spelling mistakes, omission of some of their most important achievements or not communicating their skillset properly. All of these could unfortunately make their resume end up on the reject pile. If leaders in the industry also have trouble pinning resumes, you have to wonder what that means for the ones that immediately get rejected, or never read at all.
A hiring tip: experience vs. potential.
It’s important to keep in mind exactly what the position requires so that you can determine whether the relevant work experience, or the potential of a promising candidate is more important, and a better for the role.
A candidate’s resume may indicate that they only have half of the work experience as indicated by the job requirements, but they may also have all the right skills for the job. If their resumes get tossed simply because they don’t have four years of experience working in a specific field, you could be limiting your candidate pool and miss out on many suitable people for the job.
What you see isn’t what you get.
It can be easy to assume that because a person’s resume indicate that they accomplished certain things elsewhere, that they will easily be able to achieve the same results when working for you, but this isn’t the case. A candidate’s previous victories don’t give any indication of their performance, and even though they might have extensive experience in a certain field, it doesn’t mean that there was any personal growth or passion during that time, and that’s what a resume can’t tell you.
It goes without saying that the first step in the right direction is to look a little deeper that the paper to see the bigger picture – and that’s where we step in. Let our team decide if giving someone with a fresh perspective may just be the best thing you need. We are capable and highly-trained in our toolbox to hit the ground running and provide you with the best hiring process you’ve ever tried.
