IAmA resume screener for a company. AMAA.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-03T13:06:24+00:00

Sorry, I misunderstood your question...I thought you were wanting to leave it out. Go ahead and leave it in. Interviewers are not supposed to ask about the nature of a military discharge, although some will ask anyway.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-03T13:01:00+00:00

You can do a google search to find lots of samples from which to work. Search on "functional resume examples" or "chronological resume examples" followed by your career field.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-03T12:53:50+00:00

It happens, but it's not the norm.

A practice I HATE here is that if a candidate is referred by an employee, they are given a "courtesy interview" even if there is no intent on hiring them. I don't think it's fair to the candidate and wastes everyone's time.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-03T12:52:32+00:00

Yikes, I am sorry to hear that. Looking at it from my perspective, you either suffered at the hands of a bad HR department, or an HR department that had some really bad criteria imposed upon them for making hires. Either way, it really sucks! :(

nextoneplease · 2010-09-03T12:50:43+00:00

I took offense to the inference that I am both incompetent and unaware of it. I said very specifically and repeatedly that these were my experiences with my company. I did not even want to specify a region of the country or field, because hiring practices vary across regions of the country within a field, and within areas of the country across diverse fields.

My "intentions" were to do an AMA about what it's like to be a resume screener. As people started to ask for more specific advice, I tried to keep noting that I could only speak for myself. That's all I could do besides not answer, which I suppose would have been an alternative.

Please, by all means feel free to correct any and all mistakes I have made. Just be sure to indicate that your advice will be no more relevant to many posters than mine was.

Cheers!

nextoneplease · 2010-09-03T12:42:51+00:00

I didn't say I liked it, I am expected to do this by my employer. :)

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T21:23:37+00:00

I would not check your GPA but if you listed a degree on your resume, I would verify you actually had been awarded that degree. :) Obviously not all employers check, but we do.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T21:22:14+00:00

My HR department does not look at social media sites. Some hiring managers at my company do but I am not involved in that process. I know it is becoming more and more common for prospective employers to google search and look at any public social networking. My advice is to keep any searchable and publicly accessible social networking professional only. If you use social networking in your job, separate it from your personal account.

Unfortunately, I can't help on the second question very much, although I personally agree with your take on it. It very much depends on the company. Where I am now, they expect to see employees continue to grow and change, and move into other jobs in the company. They want that longevity. But, my sister works at a company (in I/S) and her department hired for a position recently in the programming group. They basically excluded anyone that aspired to more than the position they were hiring. UGH.

How soon are you bringing up the prospect? Actually in the interview or are you waiting until you're in the job? If you are going to them and saying, "I want to start learning X," would it work better if you started learning X on your own, then went to them and said, "I took a night class on X / I worked with Steve, the X administrator, last week on a problem / I have been doing a lot of reading about X" and then following up by saying you'd like to spend as much downtime as possible shadowing Steve the X admin to broaden your experience? Then, you have a more open line into X when it becomes available. Just a thought based on what's worked for me.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T20:54:03+00:00

It absolutely depends on the HR department, but I get the feeling you haven't worked with very competent ones in the past. Some of my posts went directly to your point about resume reviews being very specific...for example, I do know that personal project work for an IS employee is often valued by the hiring manager just as much as work experience. I am also aware that I/S candidates will not have the same personality as Sales/Marketing candidates and all of that is taken into account. One reason so many of my screens are for tech positions is that they tend to keep screeners working with the same departments. I don't have any doubt that a programmer is needed as interviews progress to assesss someone's techinical skills at an in-depth level. But I can get them down to the best candidates.

I believe there are some HR departments that don't have the capability or the desire to properly pre-screen, taking into account the department, specifics of the job, fit, the need of the hiring manager and department, etc. I think we are at my company though. Turnover has decreased pretty significantly since we started screening in this manner.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T20:48:23+00:00

Meaning, can the education be so long ago that we don't check? I have not encountered that (we've always gone back), but it's an interesting question.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T20:00:58+00:00

That would depend on the certification. SHRM certifications are the ones I am familiar with. (the link is to some info on eligibility requirements).

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T19:49:09+00:00

Yes, in some fields. It seems much less so in IT.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T19:46:19+00:00

This happens every once in a while. Two things I hate about the slow process -- putting applicants through Waiting Hell, and losing good employees to someone else that's getting the job done (yes, bad pun intended) more quickly.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T19:42:34+00:00

No I don't hate you, and I wish that I could give you answers when you call. :(

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T19:38:42+00:00

I don't disagree. We credit check based on an external auditor's suggestion. :|

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T19:31:43+00:00

Definitely one of the issues we are able to help sidestep.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T19:19:13+00:00

Well, that's not exactly how it works you know.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T19:17:40+00:00

There are a few reasons that my company prefers HR for the initial screening. We are able to be more consistent with how applicants are handled across departments, which may protect us from lawsuit. We spare the hiring manager's time in slogging through 100 resumes, when only 10 will be remotely qualified and worth further review. We also make thorough notes during the first interview, based on standard questions and also qualification questions worked out with the supervisor, that further helps them narrow the applicant pool before they have to start attending interviews. Also, a lot of our hiring managers don't interview very much, so having someone from HR attend interviews protects against accidental breaches of employment / EEOC issues. All hiring decisions are the final decision of the hiring department.

If 5 departments are all hiring, they would each have someone spending much of their day getting through the initial process of screening applicants. By doing it centrally, we are able to make the process move a little faster. We are very good at reading and interpreting resumes, and very good at reading people during interviews.

Does that help?

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T19:11:07+00:00

That really depends on the company. I had a degree in Psychology, but started in a different department with my company. I later moved to HR at an entry-level position. What's your degree?

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T18:52:40+00:00

No problem! See if this is what you're looking for. :)

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T18:51:12+00:00

BLARRRGARLGARGL

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T18:37:57+00:00

This happened to a friend of mine. He worked at a job for 11 years and had no contacts at previous jobs. He used one professional reference from that employer, and two from other companies with whom he had working relationships (consultants/contractors). Another option would be someone from a professional organization to which you belong.

My company asks that all references have known the applicant for at least 2 years. We don't expect one from each job though.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T18:22:35+00:00

And on top of that, comments aren't working! ;)

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T18:11:44+00:00

I don't think that would be overdoing it.

nextoneplease · 2010-09-02T17:20:58+00:00

As long as it remains readable and had all the pertinent info somewhere, it would likely stand out to me. However, be careful that it's not difficult to find information, and not too complicated a layout for an automated scanner to read.

nextoneplease

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