Confession: I hate resumes.

I think everyone does.

Confession: I hate resumes. I think everyone does.

No one likes writing them. No one likes reading them. (Apologies to the sociopaths out there who find it enjoyable.)

They’re just so, so boring.

Which is probably why so many are poorly written. And worse, poorly reviewed.

The main way resumes *are* used in the modern era? Ruling people out.

Yes, it’s insane. And unfortunate. And frustration. And true.

When looking at a stack of resumes, it’s easier for hiring managers to start by throwing out the ‘bad’ ones aka the ones that don’t check every box. (Don’t lie. Anyone who has hired before has done this at some point.) 

But it raises the obvious truth: the ‘best’ workers do not always have the best resumes. Because they’ve been doing the job so long and so well, they don’t have to update it very often. (The case goes for interviewing, but that’s another rant for another day.)

Granted, you can’t talk to everyone. There’s not enough time in the day.

But a best practice that we adopt with our clients is doing a live 1:1 call on resume-based rule outs to discuss the why. Because there’s always something that we pulled from the vetting process that may not have made it on the page.

This isn’t an ‘us’ thing. Internal recruiters can (and should) have the ability to talk through things with their hiring managers & execs. (If that’s not the case…yet another rant for anther day.)

Tldr – If you want to make the best hires, you have to pull insights from conversations, not resumes. (Literally a recruiter’s job.)

James Hornick

Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.