Resume problem: Is it your fault?

The word “fault” doesn’t matter. Even if it’s the recruiter’s fault, it’s still the job-seeker’s problem to deal with. Bitching about it is cold comfort when you lose the job to someone else, kids.

Keep on educating, EHRL.

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Hiring managers generally do a terrible job of describing in enough detail to HR managers and recruiters what kinds of candidates they want to interview. This frustrates both recruiters and hiring managers, and greatly delays getting people hired when they are needed. If hiring managers do not define the target for the recruiters, it should be no surprise that the recruiter submits far too many inappropriate candidates for interviews. This wastes valuable time.

Years ago an outstanding recruiting company gave me their 2-page form to collect the required details from hiring managers. While a general manager, I trained my managers at all levels, including the HR manager, and internal recruiters how to use the form. Thereafter, I rejected new hire requisitions if the hiring manager inadequately completed the 2-page form.

It is also important to make the interviewing and selection process a priority. Candidates hate having to return time and again for one or two interviews with new faces. If the interviewing process stretches over several weeks, then interviewers begin to forget about the candidates they interviewed. The net result is wasting even more time. Another very real risk is that outstanding candidates become annoyed and take jobs with other companies.

The result of a set of corrective actions I pursued is that my site greatly reduced the amount of time to hire new key employees, the hiring managers seemed to hire better employees, there were very few new employees at all levels who failed to successfully complete their probation period, and employee retention in a very hot labor market measurably improved. All significant wins.

In my experience, 70% to 80% of the recruiting companies don’t do a very good job. Very good and not so good recruiting companies charge about the same fees, too. Poor recruiting starts when lead recruiters fail to effectively get into the minds of hiring managers to more deeply and thoroughly understand their needs. Hiring managers and HR managers also fail by not demanding a higher level of performance from recruiters. Recruiting, to me, is a much deeper process than casting the net to get resumes that approximately meet the terms of the requisition, then quickly sieving these to present the several best guesses that match the (probably inadequate) requisition. This approach is little better than shot gunning and it yields predictably bad results.

The scenarios I describe are very largely avoidable. Hiring managers can exert the same care into recruiting and selection as they would evaluating and making a very expensive purchase. Hiring managers and HR managers can set and demand lofty performance standards for recruiters. Senior managers can set expectations for exemplary recruiting, selection, and hiring standards, and then enforce them. This approach works and pays back.

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