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| Résumés Everywhere,
and Not a One Worth Hiring |
| by Kevin Wheeler, President and
Founder of Global Learning Resources,
Inc. |
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| Up to 25,000, 50,000, sometimes even
more than 100,000 résumés are submitted to the larger and
better-known organizations in the United States every week. Even back when we
perceived that there was a "talent war," firms were being inundated with
résumés as job boards grew and candidates discovered how easy it
was to apply to many places at once. |
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| Probably half of the calls and
emails I get ask me how to deal with résumé volume, and a recent
informal poll of recruiters put résumé volume and the inability
to deal with it at the top of their concerns. |
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| Yet they have more or less created
their own problem by only using half of a technology. While job boards and
websites can collect information and spread it rapidly, recruiters have really
only just begun to figure out how the technology can be applied on the
receiving end, easing their work and improving the quality of the candidates.
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New
Attraction Schemes
It is probably no longer necessary for most
organizations to post jobs on jobs boards or use any type of mass advertising.
A broad spectrum of people come to the websites of most firms, and the only
need is to learn how to convert these visitors into candidates. |
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| It will take good branding, careful
testing, and creative ideas, but more and more we will see organization
converting people who come to their websites looking for product information,
pricing, support, or background information into a potential candidates. The
money we spend on job boards and advertising can be much more effectively spent
on the website—and particularly the recruiting site. |
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Candidate
Interfaces
When candidates come to most websites they are asked
to submit a résumé. Why? Because submitting a
résumé was a reasonable approach when people had to walk into
your office or send a piece of paper by mail. Back then, volumes were generally
reasonable and most people used some care in deciding whether or not to apply
at a particular firm. Many résumés were addressed to a specific
position in the firm that had been identified by reading a newspaper ad or
through word-of-mouth. But in the job-board-enabled, web-based world we live
in, this approach is a disaster. |
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| By simply asking candidates to
submit a résumé—without qualification and without matching
skills to your organization's needs—you are generating useless, low
quality volume. Even worse, in my opinion, you are making a tacit promise to a
candidate that they will be considered for some job and that they will get some
sort of response from you. In reality, most résumés are never
read and most candidates never get any response. The end result is frustrated,
even angry, candidates and overworked recruiters. |
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Reducing
Résumé Volume
The first way to begin reducing
résumé volume is to stop using job boards or general advertising
and start learning how to convert the visitors to your website into candidates.
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| Once you have done this, the second
step is to begin developing an information capture and screening mechanism on
your website that uses the interactive power of the Internet. Rather than
asking for a résumé, you should be asking candidates for the
specific information you need to decide if they are the kind of candidate that
has the skills and general background to fit your organization. Once you have
determined that they are capable and qualified, you should see if you have a
current position that they would fit. If you have one, they should be invited
to take a look at the description of the position and then asked, if they are
interested, to answer additional questions that would further qualify them.
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| All of this is done without you
personally being involved. All of this happens through the website. |
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| It's not difficult or particularly
expensive to do. In fact, some of the better applicant tracking systems offer
most of these features today. What is tragic is that most of the people who buy
those systems don't activate or use the very features that would ease one of
their biggest concerns. |
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| Screening questions, short tests and
quizzes, and online interviews are all available today. Most of the screening
tools are legal, valid, and easy for the candidate to use. And they raise the
level of satisfaction on both sides. |
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The Issue
of Personalization
Many recruiters who hear me talk about this
ask me if candidates feel that this approach is impersonal and unfriendly. My
answer is that what we currently do—which is to ignore their
résumé, avoid the phone, and fail to provide them with any
information—is far more impersonal and unfriendly than quick and honest
feedback. |
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| If I am a candidate and I learn
right away that there are no good positions for me, at least right now, I leave
knowing that I was heard and that I had been considered. |
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What To Do
When There Is No Current Job Fit
Very often, good candidates will
appear when you have no opening and no prospect of an opening. With these
web-based technologies you can stay in touch with candidates very easily. You
can invite them to join a talent community by proving some additional
information about themselves that will help you get to know them better. You
can send them emails and newsletters, and always go to this community first
when a position does open up. |
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| Organizations who have spent the
time to create these talent communities report high levels of satisfaction and
success. Learning to establish online communication and spending the time to
develop letters and newsletters is far better used than the time spent in
figuring our what to do with thousands of résumés. |
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| You should never again ask anyone
for a résumé. Rather, you should ask them to answer some
questions on your website. This way you can get the information you need to
make a decision on whether or not a person has the basic qualifications you are
seeking. It offers you a space to market your company and the position to the
candidate and it builds an automatic communication channel that you can use for
months or years. And, best of all, both you and the candidate will feel a lot
better about each other. |
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| Kevin Wheeler, the President and
Founder of Global Learning Resources, Inc., is a globally-known speaker,
author, columnist, and consultant in human capital acquisition and development.
His extensive career, global client base, and research affiliations make GLR a
leading provider of both strategy and process. GLR focuses on assisting firms
architect human capital strategies. GLR guides firms thorough comprehensive
talent acquisition processes and procedures as well as the development of
talent within organizations of all sizes. GLR can be explored at
http://www.glresources.com.
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| This article first appeared on
The Electronic Recruiting Exchange.
Founded as an email discussion list for recruiting professionals in February,
1998, the Electronic Recruiting Exchange (ERE) contains thousands of pages of
content relating to recruiting, and continues to drive traffic from over 30,000
loyal members, most of whom receive its publications in their inbox each day.
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