Workforce Guides

When your company advertises an open position, potentially hundreds of candidates apply for work. This places large workload on your managerial team and HR staff. How are you able to sufficiently vet each resume when time is of the essence?

What follows is a collection of tips and tricks aimed at allowing a proper review of every resume that comes across your desk. They help you give each candidate the right amount of analysis in less than a minute. Use these tactics whenever you post a new job ad to ensure your company makes the best possible hire.

Fully Understand the Job Description

Before beginning to review resumes, a full understanding of the job requirements of your open position is essential. You need to keep the required skills and abilities as well as the necessary professional experience at the forefront of your mind. This helps you quickly reject candidates without spending an inordinate amount of time.

At the same time, you and your HR team need to develop a candidate profile describing the perfect candidate. Once again, this provides essential information to help with the initial vetting of resumes. This upfront effort needs to happen before the first job ad goes live.

Schedule Some “Do Not Disturb” Time for Resume Reviewing

Anyone responsible for resume vetting at your company needs to completely dedicate themselves to that task. This includes scheduling a block of time to review candidates. Don’t take phone calls, text messages or other disruptions during this time, unless it is an emergency situation.

During an initial vetting, focus on whether the candidate meets the basic requirements of the position. Also pay close attention to the spelling and grammar on the résumé and cover letter. This also helps you to weed out any unworthy candidates.

Forward those resumes passing this test to a screening committee charged with finding the applicants who best meet the ideal candidate profile. At this point, begin to compare candidates to each other with an eye towards finding a select few worthy of the interview process. If there are too many great candidates, consider an intermediary phone screening step to keep the number of in-person interviews to a minimum.

Ultimately, follow these steps to quickly find the best candidate possible.

When you need additional help growing a great team at your business, talk with the knowledgeable group at PrideStaff Houston. As one of the top general staffing agencies in the Southwest, we also maintain a supply of top candidates in a variety of fields. Contact us to schedule some time to meet soon!