Resume Red Flags

By Alex Fischer

Regardless of what position you’re seeking to fill, if you’re a small business owner trying to hire someone, you probably needed that person to start yesterday. You’re too busy to consider every single applicant. Don’t worry: you don’t have to sift through every resume you receive to find top talent.

With millions of potential candidates using Internet job boards, recruiters can seek the closest match of skills, experience and personality for a job opening.

The advent of online job postings, in many ways, came as a welcomed sign of hiring efficiency to employers. With millions of potential candidates using Internet job boards, recruiters can seek the closest match of skills, experience and personality for a job opening. List the position, and job seekers can come to you. It’s inexpensive and fast.

Unfortunately for busy small business owners, one of those key benefits is also a considerable downside. When you list the position online, job seekers can come to you—in throngs. No longer having to go through the Sunday paper and write a full letter and address an envelope, applicants can just click one button. No cover letter, no postage—and in many cases, no thought. For you, this may mean a few hundred (at least!) wholly unqualified applications showing up in your email inbox, people who, rather than seek a good match, simply throw resumes out into cyberspace and see what sticks.

Easy Tips for Screening
First things first: If you haven’t done so already, set up a rule in your email program to filter incoming resumes to their own folder. This will help you avoid getting distracted from your daily tasks and messages and keep the resumes organized so you can deal with them when you choose.

Get a Refresher
Next, before you even begin reading the first cover letter, go back and read your job posting. If you have it documented, review the position’s description of duties and responsibilities. By keeping fresh in your head a picture of what you need and want, you’ll be better suited to weed out what you don’t. Make a list of your absolute minimum criteria and immediately rule out candidates who don’t meet these minimums.

Do It Together
It may be helpful to review resumes in teams. Group candidates into three categories: highly qualified, qualified, and unqualified. Toss out the ones in the third pile, and screen the remaining resumes with the rest of the team. The different points of views and sets of eyes will help to ensure that no one gets missed and time doesn’t get wasted on the ones who should get missed.

As you’re reviewing the applications, there are a few red flags you should be on the lookout for, including:

Gaps between jobs
Were they in jail? Traveling? Watching daytime television in their parents’ basement? Gaps between jobs can mean a number of things, but when they go unexplained, it’s a red flag.

Series of short-term positions
Were they unmotivated? Untrustworthy? Unskilled? You likely don’t want to find out the hard way.

Many unrelated jobs in work history
When you hire someone new, you want an employee with a clear focus and career goal. Screen out candidates who can’t show commitment.

Typos, poor spelling and grammar
If a person can’t show attention to detail in the one document they choose to represent them in a job search, what kind of quality can you expect once hired?

Lack of progression in responsibilities or salary
The ideal employee is someone who craves challenges and can handle greater responsibilities over time. No evidence of professional growth in job experience can be a red flag for an unmotivated worker.

Rounded-off dates and overly vague descriptions
A candidate who “handled bills” in 1995 could have simply delivered bills from one desk to another for a single month. Get specifics.

Take a Second Look

44% of employment records showed a difference of information between what the applicant provided and what the past employer reported.

Automatic Data Processing, Inc.'s (ADP) April, 2002, study showed that 44% of employment records showed a difference of information between what the applicant provided and what the past employer reported, while 41% of education records showed a difference of information between what the applicant provided and the educational institution reported. Both resume proliferation through online job boards and misrepresentation appear to be permanent problems, making resume screening more important than ever. To make sure you get the person you think you’re getting, ask for a little more than the standard resume and cover letter. For creative staff, ask for a portfolio and samples. For sales staff, ask for samples of presentations and pitches. And don’t forget about checking references!

Phone Screen
Once you’ve narrowed down your “highly qualified” and “qualified” categories of resumes, the last stage of your pre-interview screening process is the phone interview. This is your chance to ask the questions to make sure you’re both on the same page. Don’t skip this step. Like the other screening measures above, it will save you time and energy in finding the right talent for your business.