Hiring Manager wanting to hire from a resume!!!

Hiring Manager wanting to hire from a resume!!!

Believe it or not there are hiring managers(HM) who want to be able to make a hire decision from a resume. They may not admit it, but deep down, that is what they want. Mainly it is because they do not want to commit the needed time to do it right. As a result allot of great candidates get passed by, and jobs that should be filled relatively quickly take forever.

How do we stop this, is the more interesting issue. Sometimes the only way to stop it is to explain to them what the resume is really for. As most of us know a resume is not designed to say "hire me". It is designed to say "talk to me". Sometimes a HM needs that explained to them. Sometimes he even needs it proved to them. The best way to do this is to get resumes of really good people currently on the team and show the resumes to the HM so they sees what you mean. You can even take the names off to further prove the point. You would be surprised how well this can work.

In the end it is all about educating your HM about staffing and how it really works as opposed to how they want it to work.

Comment by Thabo on January 1, 2011 at 5:26am: Dean, equally as concerning are recruiters who send the resume to the client without interviewing the candidate. They see the resume that has the appropriate key words that were in the job spec, and push that resume forward. What is that about? Recruiters also need to focus on training their own staff as that kind of behavior is really what makes Mark's Post still get comments today.

Comment by Dean Da Costa on January 1, 2011 at 4:18pm: That is very true and is a subject for an upcomming blog I will be writing.

Comment by Heather R. Huhman on January 4, 2011 at 4:15pm: Hi Dean,

Great post!

I love your comment that "a resume is not designed to say 'hire
me.' It is designed to say 'talk to me.'" And if a resume doesn't
say "talk to me," you can easily open that line of communication
through a social media profile!

While hiring managers would love to hire straight from a resume, they are
still looking at social media profiles (like LinkedIn) and talent communities
(like Cachinko) before they make a decision. To make sure your HM is educated
about staffing, open up the opportunity for two-way communication with
candidates -- it's easy to ask questions and find more information on
passive and active candidates through social recruitment solutions. It
also eliminates blind (or ineffective) hiring.

Have a great new year!