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06.10.08 Does Your Resume Pass The Prescreening Test?  By Dan MorrillGenerally when someone is looking at your resume they are after two things, one finding the highest quality candidate that they can find for the money they have (not necessarily the cheapest, just the best one in budget range for the position), the second one is someone that will work well within the organization. If you hit on both cylinders, then the odds of being hired anywhere are pretty good. The thing that I noticed the most in going through and digesting the resumes is the following. Original Amount of resumes 200 • Number rejected for not meeting the minimum qualifications of the position - 150 • Number rejected for not having a complete resume - 30 • Number rejected for not meeting prescreen - 10 • Number making it to interview - 10 • Number rejected for not being able to answer the interview questions - 7 • Number hired - 3 • Number of open positions remaining - 16 At this rate, I will go through 1,067 resumes to fill those remaining 16 positions. This is not a good use of my time or HR's time that has to deal with the majority of the prescreening. The good part is that HR is informed down to the detail of what I am looking for in a candidate, and is using actual interview questions to help screen out folks that just spammed a resume to any open position. The scary part are the first two numbers, 150 folks, or 75% of those who applied did not even meet the minimum requirements for the position, Masters Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or otherwise. We are looking for people who are currently in the field, doing the work that we are doing, (Java, PHP, MySQL, Web 2.0, C#, all sorts of open qualifications) and at least 2 years in any of those disciplines. The bar is low to get in the position; we are just looking for basic competency, not a rock star. We plan on training people to do the specific things we want to do, building both the candidate and our talent pool. We have a plan, it is a good plan, and people who get hired will have a lot of fun, but 75% who applied did not even have these basic low bar credentials.
The second number, the 30 people or 15% of those who applied did not do a complete resume, we want a cover letter, we also want a resume, or the questionnaire filled out totally, not a long line of N/A's. If the resume consists of a few lines about what you are doing, then it really isn't complete, we want to know what you have done, where you fit in, and what you want to do. Not that you don't care enough to follow simple directions and be upfront about stuff. The saddest part was the 10 people actually interviewed, if you throw a resume over the wall, anything on that resume is fair game. If you say HTML, then we are going to ask you questions about HTML. It is far too late in the interview process to admit you don't really know HTML. If you say SQL, and you cannot sort a database, then you don't really have expertise in SQL. If you say you are knowledgeable about Microsoft Operating Systems and Linux and do not know the difference between threading and a parent child processes, then you really are not knowledgeable about the operating systems. You have not only wasted your time, but everyone else's, and people have long memories. The three people who were hired can answer all those questions, but the overhang of some 1,067 resumes remaining makes the cost of hiring expensive. We may not hire those positions because the cost of going through all those resumes gets to be very labor intense, we all have other things to do, and we might just be able to make it through with who we have already. If you are looking for a job, make sure your resume is tailored to the job description, that you fill out everything the hiring people want even if it looks stupid, make sure you meet the minimum qualifications for the position, and that you really know what you have on your resume, and can answer the interview questions accordingly. Comments About the Author: Dan Morrill has been in the information security field for 18 years, both civilian and military, and is currently working on his Doctor of Management. Dan shares his insights on the important security issues of today through his blog, Managing Intellectual Property & IT Security, and is an active participant in the ITtoolbox blogging community. |
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