Stop Wasting Time With Embellished Resumes
Are you tired of realizing your new hires don’t fit your company’s culture? Sick of people who have experience listed on their resume, but can’t do the work once they start? Annoyed that the “perfect candidate” isn’t actually a high performer?
Blaming the job market or the young generations isn’t the answer. Ultimately, poor hires are the responsibility of the person who extended an offer of employment.
Without a solid interview process, you’re likely relying on embellished resumes to make your hiring decision.
“I think 99.9% of the time, resumes are garbage.” – Ryan Englin
Until recently there were two main types of resumes – resumes written by the job seeker and resumes written by a professional. Technology has added a third possibility.
Professionally Written Resumes
Scenario: The perfect resume crosses your desk. It has experiences that match your job ad, mentions all the skills and job functions you’re looking for, and even includes references. You’re in a hurry to get your team up to speed, so you call and offer them a quick interview. They seem a little disappointing during your meeting, but you brush it off as interviewing nerves, and offer the job anyway. A few weeks later, you realize their skills are greatly lacking.
This hiring fail, is the result of an embellished resume and a rushed interview process.
For a couple hundred bucks, professional resume writers will capture everything a candidate ever accomplished. They know the right questions to ask a job seeker to make sure they can fill a fluffy resume that aligns with your job ad perfectly. Professional resume writers bring the added benefit of experience in formatting and phrasing so their resumes get through the initial screening process.
Professionally written resumes can help get a foot in the door. However, unless the job seeker is very involved in the process, the chances of the resume being fully accurate are unlikely. Thus, an unreliable, embellished resume is created.
Clueless Candidate Resumes
Scenario: You have high standards in your business, so when a resume comes through with mistakes, you attribute that to carelessness and put it in the “no” pile. Some of the resumes are lacking experience, even though they seem to have the enthusiasm to start right away and include strong references. You turn these down, waiting for the perfect application. Unfortunately, you may have missed out on great candidates.
This hiring fail, is the result of a candidate lacking experience in applying for jobs. Since they didn’t advance to the interview stage, you’ll never know what they could bring to your team.
The next type of resume is put together by someone who has no idea how to write one. These are job seekers who just want to find a great job and get hired. The resume likely has grammatical errors, unrelated work experience, and limited or irrelevant skills listed.
But can you really blame the job seeker? Unless you’re hiring a resume writer, you shouldn’t qualify a candidate based on the quality of their resume. If resume writing isn’t a job requirement, why does it matter how well-written their resume is?
Ideally, the resume you read will be the last resume the job seeker ever needs to write, so this isn’t a skill worth perfecting.
AI-Generated Resumes
Scenario: You receive a resume that looks nearly identical to the job ad you recently posted. It seems too good to be true! You call and offer them a job on the spot because you don’t want talent like this to get away. Before long, you’re getting complaints from existing team members about their low drive and bad attitude.
This hiring fail, is the result of a computer-generated resume advancing through your screening process without a thorough interview to check for culture fit and verify skills.
Technology has introduced a third type of resume. AI (Artificial Intelligence) resume builders promise to be fast, easy, and more likely to get you hired. Who wouldn’t want to use this tool?
It’s never been easier and more affordable to write a customized resume that speaks to everything companies are looking for while considering search engine optimization (SEO), Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), and even recruiters. With just a couple of keystrokes, a job seeker can instantly have a resume that appears to be perfect for the job.
Unfortunately, job seekers relying on AI could end up with an embellished resume filled with inaccurate information. AI-generated resumes are likely the most artificial of the three types of resumes.
Interviewing Strategies to Ensure You Hire the Right People
To hire better people, you have to stop wasting time with embellished resumes. The average job seeker isn’t an expert resume writer. And that’s okay. What really matters isn’t what’s in the resume, it’s what’s in the interview.
In a world full of exaggerated resumes, you can trust the one thing you have control over – your interview process. Here are some tips:
- Get people to interview authentically
- Weed out the embellishments
- Ask questions that really matter
- Ask about data and numbers in the resume
- Ask for examples to back up their experience
- Call references
Taking time to develop an effective, objective interview process will help sort out the embellished resumes and allow you to hire the right people.
The next time you post a job ad, think about if you really want to see the resume. Does it actually matter? Odds are, it’s not 100% accurate anyway.
