I have been in HR for 18 years, and I cut my teeth in recruiting. One thing I always took pride in was an easy ability to scan through a stack for resumes and pull out the top 3 candidates to interview in no time flat.  I’m really good at this, or so I thought. I have a pretty good track record of hiring good candidates, which just reenforced my belief that I could find the best candidates in a stack of resumes very quickly.

But here is the fatal flaw I find in that logic. My company is doing layoffs, and I was told I could very likely be among those cut or put on a reduced work schedule, so I should put my feelers out there sooner rather than latter. So this weekend I tried to update my resume.

Here is what I found, my skills at reading a resume do not translate into writing a resume.  I am not a good resume writer. I don’t self promote well, at least not in written form. That hasn’t presented much of a problem for me since the majority of jobs I have had, I have found through networking. The resume hasn’t mattered much because I do interview well, and networking usually lands me an interview.

But that leads me to a bit of an HR existential crisis. As my resume goes out there I am sure it is getting passed over for some senior level positions in favor of candidates with less experience, qualifications and dynamic cognition. I know this because I realize I might very well pass my own resume over.  So that makes me wonder, how many amazing candidates have I missed over the years because I was sure I could blow through a stack of resumes in no time flat.

When I'm writing a post, a poem or a story, I almost never know where I am going with it until I am in the mists of whatever it is I'm writing. In this case I realize I am really writing about bias.  We all have it whether we know it or not, which is why I hate when recruiters Google Stalk candidates. You simply never know if you are going to come across some protected piece of information that you have a conscious or unconscious bias towards.

But let's stick with resumes for now.

The average recruiter spends less that 20 seconds on a resume.  I was talking to a recruiter the other day who had a copy of my resume. She didn't really have a problem with the content of it, though she felt their were a few areas that could be beefed up for her clients needs.  I was amused when she sent me a sample resume and wanted me to format my resume that way.

I realized that was her format bias, and if I want to be submitted to her client I would need to conform to her format.  I get it. A lot of recruiters love cover letters, I hate them. If you have written a long cover letter, you have already lost points with me. The same thing goes for resume format. Ask 10 recruiters what format is best you will get 10 different answers. But when you are writing that resume and or cover letter, you have no way of knowing the readers biases.

There was a 2002 study where resumes with white sounding names were 50% more likely to be called for an interview than those with black sounding names. Now there is a lot of racism in the county but I have to believe with percentages that high, we are talking about unconscious biases in many cases. Now that brings me back to Google stalking candidates and why I am probably wrong in an argument with my wife. 

A few months ago, long before I had any idea that I would be on a job search, I started blogging about my recent discovery (admission) of a life long battle with mild depression, anxiety, and ADHD. She was worried that if I ever needed to find a job, that information would be out there and could hurt my chances. My response was, no it wouldn't. I have a great career track record and outstanding references.  

If they are Google stalking me and decide not to hire me based on protected ADAAA information, I don't really want to work for them anyways. But here is what I forgot, unconscious bias.  I am still OK with it because I know my posts have helped people. But now I realize if they are Google stalking me, even if not actively aware of it, they could be letting unconscious bias play a bigger picture than I realized. 

So recruiters and hiring managers - 1. Don't Google stalk. 2. Know your biases and check them. 3. Don't be so sure you can really read that resume in 20 seconds, remember maybe someday someone will be missing your excellent qualifications. 

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Corey Feldman (Not an 80's actor)

Over 18 years of human resource management experience including compensation, training, recruiting, federal/state/government contract reporting and compliance, HRIS development, deployment and implementation.  Effective supervisory, communication and presentation skills. Ability to manage multi-site, multi-state human resource function. PHR certified.

My Blog   Blog RSS Egret the Elephant stories/poems   Egret The Elephant Facebook Fanpage  Egret Podcast

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