Think about the above statement, carefully. Objectivity during the hiring process is more often than not a great way to ensure the new candidate has “the right stuff”. Granted, skills, abilities, and knowledge are in that perfect bundle: the resume. The first step on the path to an objective review of your candidates in the queue is reviewing that resume. Everyone involved in this process plays a part, and very often a big wrench clouts efficiency on the head, without even trying.

The Candidate
Being in a hurry and trying to land a job are two conflicting forces pulling at every candidate. The faster and more efficient searcher gains the advantage by having their resume in the queue first. And, if their resume and cover letter are golden, it seems like this job is in the bag. Then, at the bottom of the posting, of the job of your dreams, you’re asked to submit your resume through the dreaded “resume muncher machine” — or some such monster. Your speed and efficiency just went from Luke Skywalker’s Light Speed (or Dark Helmet’s Ludicrous Speed) to the pace of a dancing slug.

What do you do to stay ahead? Well, a surprising number of candidates cut some corners or just jam whatever they can into the resume muncher. The Society for Human Resource Management conducted a study where the findings indicated that more than 50 percent of all candidates misrepresented their qualifications on their resume¹. How many of these misrepresentations were due to painful processes on the front end that face the candidate? And, more importantly, how many of these egregious errors could have been caught up front with a less obtrusive tool? It is important to note that the process needs to cover everyone from the candidate through the recruiter and HR Team all the way to the hiring manager?

The Hiring Manager
How many job reqs does it take to ruin a hiring manager’s day? When the job is highly technical or integral to the success of the company (or both) the pressure is on to get the right person for the job, fast. Often times the hiring manager can spare only a few moments to review, catalog, comment, and then coordinate the mountains of resumes, phone screens, interviews, and feedback conversations. To hire just one candidate, during the peak of your day, one hour seems to stretch into half the day - or worse.

The hiring manager in this position can only survive if the recruiter and the HR Team are operating at 120% efficiency. Anything less results in misfires in resume reviews or phone screens which then leads to a less than objective assessment. As soon as the candidate gets into the office, and does not seem like a “psycho”, everyone is happy and relieved to meet someone that fits the culture and wants to be a part of something big. A few months later, as the honeymoon period wanes, the hiring manager sits up and says, “Sheesh, this person doesn’t know anything about this subject?” How often have you awoke, in a cold sweat at your desk, asking yourself this very question? How different would it be if you had been able to focus your efforts and still spend just a little less time reviewing that resume?

The Recruiter
Being in a hurry is the mantra for everyone involved in the hiring process. Recruiters have so many time sensitive tasks it’s a miracle they find time to get a drink of water. With the myriad of job search tools, time spent cleaning up a candidates resume, gathering information to provide better keyword searching, conversations with the hiring manager to understand what role is truly being sought, and providing feedback within to prove that, “Yes, I called 10 candidates and landed 2 new accounts this week.” Just to get a few real leads and land one hire a month there just isn’t enough time in the day.

Recruiters rely heavily on the information that a candidate supplies to them and the information they can extract, like a molar, from a hiring manager. With everyone trying to get to the goal as quickly as possible, with the least amount of heartache, it’s a wonder that there isn’t more than 50% of the hiring ending in a mismatch. Plus, even with very expensive onboarding tools, there are still misqueues and invalid information because those tools require far too much effort to record and report. How amazing would it be to just have all the right information, collected in short order, and clear enough to provide an objective screening of your entire candidate pool? Where on earth is this illusive tool, this process or approach, this grail we all hope to hold one day?

We’re getting there, not to worry …

Footnote
1. “Personnel Assessment Tools Can Increase Hiring Success”, Lisa Rice, Principal, Talent Assessments
Guest Columnist Special Feature: 13 Principles for Conducting Worthwhile Assessment Programs
03-10-2006 — CarolinaNewswire.com

TAGS: hiring process, resume muncher machine, monster, Luke Skywalker, Dark Helmet, Ludicrous Speed, resume reviews, phone screens, keyword searching, onboarding, objective screening, Staff IT Right, Intelligent Business Resourcing, staffing, sourcing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 10:41 pm and is filed under Challenges. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.