An UNTHINKING HIRING MACHINE – PART II
Where did hiring and recruitment go all wrong? This is the second, Hiring Part II, article of An UNTHINKING HIRING MACHINE. I’ll be providing further history and details how an artificial hiring RULE became the basis of the juggernaut, hiring machine, we know today. To gain a better understanding, ensure to read part one of this article.
A GOLD RULE TO RULE THEM ALL
This Unthinking RULE, for this UNTHINKING HIRING / RECRUITEMENT MACHINE originally began to address the problem of:
“IT TAKES TOO LONG TO READ A RESUME”
Related Articles
- AN UNTHINKING HIRING MACHINE – Part I
- AN UNTHINKING HIRING MACHINE – Part II
- RECRUITEMENT – RESUME LENGTH WINS OVER HEALTH
- RECRUITEMENT LEFTOVERS
- TALENT APTITUDE – SUCCESS FACTOR – Part I
- TALENT APTITUDE – SUCCESS FACTOR – Part II
- VIDEO: RECRUITMENT – RESOURCE SELECTION
- …of Service – GOING ABOVE & BEYOND
Note: Being are larger topic, resume health is an art unto itself. This is covered elsewhere.
This problem dates back where hiring managers were routinely forced to culled through lengthy resumes – resumes containing loads of irrelevant history and information. For those who don’t know, this can be a significant time-suck. It can be frustrating for hiring managers.
Hiring managers ought to be able to rapidly derive candidates’ qualifications from relevant resume information. It should make sense and be sequitur. Recruitment should be easy.
Because experienced jobseekers wouldn’t, refused or simply were unable to tune their resumes, it was cursorily determined resumes needed to be limited to 1 – 2 pages in length. In essence, resumes had to become shorter. End of story.
SUMMARY: HOW THIS CAME ABOUT IN RECRUITMENT
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- Overworked hiring managers legitimately complained they were spending a terrific amount of time reading through useless resume details
- HR executives sought to address this complaint by adopting a best-practice standard: resumes length ought to be kept at 1-2 pages
- This rapidly mutated into: resumes are to be no more than 1-2 pages
- This wound up becoming the near-zero tolerant GOLDEN RULE we known today – this has long since been adopted by outsourced recruiting agencies.
Jobseekers Note:
There are two sides to this coin for jobseekers:
- Ensuring to include and maintain relevant, current and pertinent information
- Omitting details and history which aren’t relevant
As word on practices; jobseekers applying for say a marketing position or project should omit irrelevant history and details which do not pertain to the position. Your job is to appropriately direct the attention of your audience by including rich information which the hiring managers will be interested in seeing. It should demonstrate your ability, passion, history and interests. There isn’t any reason to include your gas station job from 20 year ago.
A hiring manager might factually have the most qualified candidate (in resume form), but wouldn’t know it because the details are blurred beneath mounds of irrelevant busy-work or malformed details. These simply are good practices for maintaining “resume health“.
The two hidden secrets to getting a resume submitted to hiring managers are a.) abiding by resume length and b.) being the quickest on the draw. Well, there is also a factor of being the cheapest recruit – but that’s another topic all together. (see article: Technical Recruitment Leftovers)
With a single exception (i.e. length), none of the best resume-tuning practices, by candidates, makes an iota of difference unless one follows this golden rule. Having a one or two pages, with sufficient buzz words, is nearly all that is needed for a resume to be fast-tracked to a hiring managers’ desk. Regardless of acumen or spelling errors, length is the way in and what truly matters.
3rd PARTY RECRUITMENT AGENCIES
Outsource recruitment (or 3rd party) firms commonly adopt and cling to simple standards – such as keep your resume short. If you doubt this, take an outsourcing firm for a little spin. You might also find the hidden layers of 3rd party firms to be staggering. (see article: Technical Recruitment Leftovers)
In today’s dog-eat-dog competitive hiring industry, out sourcing recruitment firms thrive on customer winning business. This is accomplished by being the quickest to the draw resume-shops (literally quantity versus quality). Resumes are seldom read, let alone understood. Locating and rapidly presenting SHORT resumes (preferably 1-2 pages) containing an appropriate numbers of buzz words, is easier, faster and generally more cost efficient than dealing with lengthier longer resumes.
Hint for Recruiters
Who or where does one go to help teach proper resume health, rules and best practices? Who helps with resume etiquette? What about identifying spelling and grammatical errors. There are countless websites providing resume best-practices.
Recruiters are in the best position to effectively help candidates shift this resume health paradigm in a far more positive direction.
It takes valuable time and commitment to read, understand and work with jobseekers to tune resume content. It takes communication. This typically takes longer. Who can afford the time to do all that?
Many (3rd party) agencies have steadily grown and profited from the USE of this unthinking flaw. A number of these agencies do not provide actual return nor worth. Instead of solving hiring challenges, recruitment agencies compound and worsen the scene costing workforce and leaders untold numbers of lost man hours, not to mention wasted millions in attrition.
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO FINDING THE RIGHT RESOURCE?
Lengthier resumes, from qualified candidates, can easily be solved with a little personal care, judgement and elbow grease. Unfortunately this does not happening often enough.
HISTORY – AN UNTHINKING HIRING MACHINE
Over a decade ago, an accident occurred which began the course for this Unthinking Hire Machine. It took hold. This unthinking, omnipresent, dominant idea began quietly laying in its claws, gradually working its way through and into corporate hiring processes.
This came about in an effort to solve a low order, somewhat benign, hiring challenge (covered above). This unthinking process unwittingly introduced an arbitrary into the very core of business hiring. In plain sight, it changed the very fabric of hiring.
Like the butterfly effect, widespread and unforeseen momentum ensued. This rapidly obtained widespread agreement resulting in unforeseen and hidden damages, waste and impact to very hiring scene managers rely upon.
If you ever felt or sensed something was a bit off or wrong with our hiring system, you’re right. This can perhaps be perceived as shadow-boxing with an invisible, unthinking ghost?
In this article, we have addressed the following concerns and questions
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- Business Leaders: How can better results be obtained from our recruiting efforts?
- Hire Managers: Why is it so difficult to locate qualified candidates?
- Profession Job-Seekers: How come my resume isn’t being seen by hiring managers?
There are those who might disagree or perhaps take offence to what has been written here. If one however takes the time to inspect beneath the covers, the sordid waste and details rapidly become apparent.
DTS RECRUITEMENT EPILOGUE
At DTS Inc. we take pride in our thoroughness spending time to speak to and appropriately screen all candidates. Some make it, some do not. We consult our qualified candidates by increasing the overall health, conciseness and relevance of their resumes making for an easy decision process for our customers.
Contact DTS Inc. to experience the difference.
Warmest Regards,
SHAWN MAY
DTS Inc. | Principal Architect & CEO – About DTS
Related Articles
- AN UNTHINKING HIRING MACHINE – Part I
- AN UNTHINKING HIRING MACHINE – Part II
- RECRUITEMENT – RESUME LENGTH WINS OVER HEALTH
- RECRUITEMENT LEFTOVERS
- TALENT APTITUDE – SUCCESS FACTOR – Part I
- TALENT APTITUDE – SUCCESS FACTOR – Part II
- VIDEO: RECRUITMENT – RESOURCE SELECTION
- …of Service – GOING ABOVE & BEYOND
CORE PRACTICES
- Implementing correct solutions
- Bringing the correct talent (professional-staff-augmentation or project team)
- Alignment to the business functional & functional direction
- Maintaining agility with communication and options
- Ensure to have a properly scoped project and accurate roadmap eliminating fluff
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