Never Judge a Person by his/her Resume

A good Resume is a gateway for a candidate into an organization. In so many instances my inbox would be flooded with 100’s of resumes for a single position. The easiest way I choose to shortlist the candidates then were the following:

       > Educational Qualification,

       > Relevant Work Experience and

       > Present & Expected Salary  levels

With the above filter, my choice would reduce to a dozen resumes which will make my life simpler. This is the standard process I was introduced to and many industry recruiters follow this filter too. However let me now explain how I got this filter strategy wrong especially when handling Middle & Senior level position.

Educational Qualification:

To explain with an example, walk into an IT company, you will notice thousands of Civil Engineers & Electrical Engineers write programs. Most of them were not trained in Software (or) Computer code while joining the organization. How do they manage to do it? While the candidates bring the basic requirements of Analytical skills & logical understanding, software is industry specific skill where they are trained by their employers. It doesn’t matter what engineer you are, do you have it in you to perform the given task. That matters the most.

Lesson 1: The first lesson I learnt was to look beyond their educational qualification & see if a candidate has it in him/her to perform the job to expected levels.

Relevant Work Experience:

For Generalist roles like HR, Accounts, Finance and Sales it is not a crime to consider candidates from other sectors. Rigidity doesn’t help here. Having candidates with cross sector experience will bring in the best practices from other industry which can be tailor-made to suit our organization.

Lesson 2: The Second lesson I learnt is for non-specialized jobs, cast your net wide for a better catch.

Present & Expected Salary levels:

Consider this situation.

You are looking to recruit a Chartered Accountant for the post of DGM with 15 Yrs work Experience in all domains of Finance. Salary level you have fixed for this position is Rs. 20 Lakhs/Year. You stumble upon a candidate who is currently drawing Rs. 22 Lakhs/annum. What do you do?

In first glance, I would not consider his resume since it doesn’t meet my criteria.

However what if you understand after the interview, the candidate has the potential to fit in CFO shoe who is due for retirement in 2 years (or) can handle dual responsibilities of Finance & Secretarial. His resume is worth considering. Isn’t it? Many organizations recruit for the current opening without thinking if the candidate will suit for the future organizational requirements. If one fits for future requirements, then the premium we pay should not be a point of consideration.

This necessarily may not be a time tested technique. But this is a gamble that has paid rich dividends in my organization.

Lesson 3: For Senior positions, don’t just look into current scenario, see if the candidate will fit into the organization for future requirement.

Fellow recruiters and HR professionals, next time you go through a resume, remember that the Education, Experience and Salary levels are just like a cover of a book and as the saying goes, “Never judge a book by its Cover”