Imagine you are working for a multinational\r\ncompany which receives hundreds or even thousands of job applications for\r\nvarious jobs on a daily basis. How would you differentiate the star achievers from\r\nthe poor performers right from the beginning? Screening candidates can be a\r\nlengthy process, there are two methods that a company can choose from.
"},"body":{"body":"Imagine you are working for a multinational\r\ncompany which receives hundreds or even thousands of job applications for\r\nvarious jobs on a daily basis. How would you differentiate the star achievers from\r\nthe poor performers right from the beginning? Screening candidates can be a\r\nlengthy process, there are two methods that a company can choose from.
Bear in mind that it is of paramount importance\r\nthat you include the absolute MUSTs in your initial job description and person\r\nspecification, otherwise you will have to deal with many unsuitable candidates.\r\nSo why wasting time with that? The purpose of screening is to eliminate\r\nunsuitable candidates who don’t match the\r\nrequirements. There are two methods that you can apply:
Method 1: Screening manually by reading through\r\neach single CV, this is what small sized companies usually do if they have a\r\nmanageable amount of CVs.
Method 2: Relying on a Resume Screening\r\nSoftware. This is how lots of mid-sized or big companies are approaching this\r\ntime consuming task due to the fact that they often face high volumes of\r\napplications.
Let’s have a look at\r\nmethod 1:
If you are screening manually then the first\r\nthing that you look at as a Recruiter is the candidate’s CV. These are\r\nsome things that I used to look at when screening candidates and that made me\r\nforward their application to the next stage of the recruitment process:
-Does the CV have\r\nthe right length (possibly not longer than 2 pages)?
-Is it well designed\r\nand clearly structured?
-Is it free of any\r\nspelling or grammar mistakes?
-Does it mention\r\ncertain keywords (as mentioned in the original job ad)?
-Does it include\r\nonly relevant information?
-Does the candidate\r\nmake clear that he has the relevant skills and experiences (as outlined in the\r\njob ad?)
-Did the candidate\r\nmention any impressive achievements?
-Did the applicant\r\nincrease the responsibilities in each job role?
-Does the candidate\r\ndemonstrate similar experiences at companies of similar size and industry?\r\n(this might not be of relevance to every job position)
There are also some “red flags”\r\nwhich I used to\r\nlook at a bit more critically. For example: employment gaps, frequent job\r\nhopping, mentioning years instead of months in the career history, mentioning\r\ndegree programs without any indication of graduation, multiple moves to other\r\ncountries, considerable drop in the list of responsibilities and sudden change\r\nof a career direction. If a candidate generally seemed to be a good fit on\r\npaper I used to give the person a phone call to ask follow-up questions.\r\nCandidates got the chance to clarify certain aspects in their career in more\r\ndetail. Often the reasons were valid to be put forward to the next stage in the\r\nhiring process.
I also never underestimated the power of a good\r\ncover letter which can also reveal a lot about a candidate, if written\r\neffectively. I focused on the following points:
-Does it sound like\r\na standard letter or has it been customized forthe position and\r\nthe company?
-How convincing and\r\nmotivated does the candidate sound?
-Does the applicant\r\nmention a valid reason for changing job?
-Can I notice any\r\nurgency in changing job?
Those candidates who write tailor-made CVs and\r\ncover letters know that their chances of getting to the next stage of the\r\nhiring process are high. The problem is that many companies nowadays start with\r\na screening process which is first computer-managed and at a later stage only\r\nhuman-managed.
Now let’s see how you can\r\nscreen candidates by focusing on method 2. \r\nAccording to Human Resources Leader already ten years ago 90 % of the\r\nTop 500 US employers were making use of Resume Scanning Software. Making use of\r\nApplicant Tracking Systems, so called ATS, has on the one hand the\r\nadvantage that it offers companies a time-saving and cost-efficient solution\r\nand is considered as less biased and doesn’t allow any form of\r\nfavoritism. On the other hand these software programs are not flawless and have\r\nthe disadvantage that highly qualified talent might be disqualified from the\r\nbeginning. Reasons for that could be for example:
- they include logos, images, graphs and other visual\r\nsigns
- they mention their job title differently than what the\r\ncompany would call them (e.g. you mention your experience as a “Secretary” but the computer is programmed in such a way that it recognizes only the\r\nword “Office Manager”\r\nfor\r\nthe same job)
- they list their different jobs, years of experiences,\r\nlocations of companies and other details in a different order
All these points could be a reason why\r\ncandidates might get disregarded due to the fact that a resume screening\r\nsoftware (not the human being!) screens through CVs and doesn’t\r\nrecognize certain formats, words etc. If the computer is confused about certain\r\ndetails on a CV, no matter how good the candidate is, the job applicant will\r\nnot get a chance to pass this initial screening stage.
Some resume screening software programs are\r\nquite advanced and sophisticated. They:
-are focusing on\r\ncertain keywords (that the company considers as paramount)
-might give higher\r\nscores to candidates who graduated from elite schools
-are able to figure\r\nout how dated a candidate’s skills are (the\r\nmore often the keywords are mentioned “the more recent and\r\nsubstantial” the candidate’s skills will be\r\nperceived by the computer!)
-might also\r\ndisregard those candidates who live outside a certain area (because employers\r\nmight not want to pay additional charges for relocation)
-might be programmed\r\nin a way that allows them also to spot a candidate’s social media sites.
Times have changed and more and more activities\r\nin our daily life will be replaced by computers. It requires from both parties\r\na certain willingness to learn and adapt to new situations. The recruiter needs\r\nto learn how to use various types of Application Tracking Software in order to\r\nmake the best use of it and jobseekers need to find the perfect balance in\r\nwriting a CV which is acceptable for a computer as well as a human Recruiter.\r\nNot an easy task and maybe one day this will be the only strategy that\r\ncompanies will apply.
"},"authorName":"Karin Schroeck-Singh","authorBio":{"authorBio":"Karin Schroeck-Singh is a passionate Public Speaker, eBook Author, and a freelancing Online Content Producer. She has an MBA from the University of Leicester (UK) and gained 18 years of international work experience in Italy, the UK and India."},"publishedOn":"2014-09-20T20:16:03.737Z"}},"pageContext":{"id":"f317f7fe-e4a9-5384-9372-103ecbf40fae"}}, "staticQueryHashes": []}