Employers and hiring managers are constantly on the lookout for ways to improve and expedite their executive search and hiring methods. Where most of these individuals are concerned primarily with how to find the best talent as quickly as possible or what questions they need to ask in the interview and how to interpret a candidate’s answers, the one spot that they tend to breeze over, yet which can be highly effective in better weeding out the bad from the good candidates is in the reviewing of resumes. The submission of resumes represents the first point of contact a prospective candidate and the employer and provides the first glimpse an employer will get into these individuals’ potential. However, despite the significance held in this stage, most employers tend review these documents only for the most fundamental information of the applicant’s work history and skills, but if they would take just a few minutes to really thoroughly look over the information not only for the face value of the content, but for what else that content, and the way it is presented, may tell you about the individual in question.
So here is a brief overview of what employers should be looking for in their candidate’s resumes, presented by the hiring professionals at executive search firms.
On the most basic level employers should look at the punctuation, grammar, and spelling in a resume. While this may sound slightly ridiculous to some, proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation are the most fundamental elements of any written document and the failure to meet these simplest of standards can be seen as highly indicative of what can be expected from such an individual in their work. If this individual is so unconcerned with the appearance of their resume, then how sloppy will their work be?
The applicant’s resume and cover letter should also be reviewed for the individual’s attention to detail. Missing words, typos, copy and paste flaws, and any other errors or indicators of an unprofessional appearance, issues that could easily have been corrected if the individual in question had simply taken the time to review their resume before submitting it, all stand as evidence of a lack of commitment and professionalism in their presentation which could be seen as a sign of their work to come.
Not only should the employer consider what experiences comprise a candidate’s work history, but they should take into consideration the timing and order of these experiences as well to determine just how the individual’s career has grown, stagnated, or declined over time. If a candidate’s resume shows no indication of any growth in their career, or in fact indicates that their work and responsibilities have plateaued or even been reduced, such factors should raise an alarm to the employer that some characteristic of this individual has marked them as unworthy of promotion and responsibility.
Finally, as a means of allowing candidates to efficiently disqualify themselves from consideration, many employers have begun rules and directions about how applicants should submit their resumes and cover letters, and what should be included there in, or added some extra qualifying factor. Should a candidate fail to apply these instructions it can be taken as a clear inability to follow directions and automatically removes that candidate from consideration.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
