Find out how taking another look at candidate resumes may help
Imagine that for months, or possibly even years, a substantial portion of the hours your organization spent screening applicants was essentially wasted time — because you’d unknowingly been sitting on a gold mine of qualified candidates.
If you currently have a carefully planned, consistently executed procedure in place to review resumes, as many companies do, that scenario may sound unlikely.
However, like many other processes, candidate tracking systems can have limitations.
Human error, for example, can play a part. One recent survey suggested the time nearly 40 percent of hiring managers take to review resumes is less than a minute.
Technology, too, can miss qualified candidates. Several years ago, research firm Bersin & Associates ran a resume it had created for an ideal clinical scientist candidate through an applicant tracking software system as a test.
Even though the resume contained a number of desired attributes, due to formatting and other issues that caused the system to misread it, the candidate’s score ended up being just 43 percent, according to an article published in CIO.
A New Way to Review Resumes
Given that one in three HR managers don’t look at candidates who have applied in the past when recruiting for a new position, according to CareerBuilder research, the total amount of overlooked applicants could be substantial.
To remedy such situations, a number of talent rediscovery solutions have hit the market in recent years, designed to help companies catch some of the qualified candidates who have slipped through the cracks during the screening process.
The solutions’ premise is fairly simple, even if the artificial intelligence-based technology behind them isn’t: The talent rediscovery software automatically screens candidates who’ve previously applied at your company to see if they’re a match to open position requirements, using your candidate tracking system’s database.
If you think your organization might benefit from re-examining some of its rejected applicant profiles — whether that involves using a talent rediscovery software product or conducting an internal candidate tracking system review — for the effort to be successful, there are a few things to keep in mind:
Determine what items you may have missed
Analyzing past recruiting results can help you identify aspects that did — or didn’t — determine hiring success.
According to a 2016 Deloitte research, insurance companies, for example, that have assessed top salespeople’s profiles found screening applicants for grade point average or academic pedigree wasn’t a strong indicator of future sales performance. Google’s senior vice president of people operations told the New York Times in 2013 that the company had stopped asking for a transcript, G.P.A.s and test scores after recruiting-related data analysis had shown those elements weren’t particularly worthwhile hiring criteria.
Keep detailed records
Seventy-eight percent of the candidate data in the average applicant tracking software/customer relationship management program isn’t accurate, according to a 2016 report analyzing hundreds of millions of candidate resumes and input from more than 1,200 recruiters and HR professionals.
More than 90 percent of recruiters felt they’d spend 70 percent less time looking for qualified candidates if they had higher quality information in their applicant tracking software database. Inaccurate/obsolete data and incomplete profiles were the two biggest candidate tracking system issues.
Consider how you’ll obtain information in the future
Make sure, if you’ll primarily be getting candidate resumes in a .pdf format, that your applicant tracking software system and talent rediscovery solution, if you use one, will accept that type of file. If not, pushing candidates to enter career information in an online form may help prevent mistakes that can result from having someone key the information in.
Screening applicants is an important hiring process step — however, without strong interviewing and other practices, you can still risk bringing the wrong person on board.
For additional tips to help improve your recruiting results, read our blog posts on the four interview process steps your should never skip, three ways big data can help with hiring, three methods to improve your tech recruitment practices and clues in candidate resumes and interviews that can indicate an applicant would be either a creative or a questionable hire.