As a result of your recruiting efforts, you’ve received a number of resumés. Your next job is to determine which applicants are worth bringing in for interviews. Your time is valuable and good interviewing is time consuming. It’s important to study the resumés carefully and pick only those whose backgrounds appear to be closest to the open job. This chapter will offer guidelines on how to select from the many resumés you receive and help you determine which applicants are most likely worth interviewing.

Always remember that the resumé is a promotional piece written by the applicant to persuade you to hire him or her. It is not an objective recap of qualifications. Your job is to find—amid those glowing words—what the applicant really has done in past employment and education.

You might receive hundreds of resumés in response to an ad. It can take hours and hours of your time to read them and make your preliminary judgments. You can save time and uncover hidden problems in the resumés by following these guidelines:

None of these tips to screening resumés are necessarily knockout factors; they simply suggest further exploration in the interview. Keep in mind that even if they have a resumé, all applicants should complete a company application form before the interview. Use the resumé as a supplement to the application form; not a substitute for it.

The resumé usually is the first source of screening applicants. As interviewing takes a good deal of time, it’s necessary to eliminate candidates who are unlikely to be qualified early in the screening process. Here are some suggestions that will help you separate the wheat from the chaff:

Resumés are only pieces of paper; they cannot possibly describe the whole person. If you choose not to see an applicant based on the resumé, you will lose this prospect—perhaps the best candidate—forever. If you have any doubts before placing it in the reject file, telephone the candidate to obtain more information.

The company application form serves several purposes. It’s a rapid way to provide the interviewer with basic information about the applicant. It makes it easy to compare candidates. It alleviates the need for the interviewer to take time asking for routine information. It also provides legal protection. As you will learn in the following, the application is very important and should be a requirement.

Some candidates might be reluctant to complete an application. They tell you that all of the information is in the resumé; sometimes it is. But, as was pointed out earlier in this chapter, a resumé is designed to play up the strengths of the applicant—and sometimes to cover up negative factors. “I don’t have to fill out the application. I have a resumé” is not a good argument. If an applicant doesn’t want to take the time to complete your application form, he or she might be hiding something—or it might be an indicator of laziness or unwillingness to follow instructions.

In this litigious age, there have been a rash of suits against companies by applicants who have claimed discrimination when they didn’t get the job. Others have claimed that companies jeopardized their current job by calling their employers for references, or that their privacy was invaded when their backgrounds were investigated.

Properly designed application forms can protect companies. For example, if no questions on your application request age or related information, applicants will have a tough time proving you discriminated against them because of age. As noted in Chapter 2, “You Gotta Know the Laws,” and Chapter 3, “Still More Laws,” make sure that your form complies with the civil rights laws and does not ask questions that are prohibited.

It’s convenient to have essential information in one easy-to-find place. The application form provides name, address, phone number, Social Security number, and educational background. Most useful is the work history with dates of employment, positions, companies, and a brief description of duties and responsibilities. Usually it includes salary, reason for leaving, and the name of a person in the company who can provide information about the applicant.

In short, the application gives you enough basic information to determine whether or not the prospect is worthy of further consideration. Although most forms don’t have enough space to give details about a person’s activities, responsibilities, and accomplishments, it provides—along with the applicant’s resumé—adequate data to make preliminary judgments.

Whereas resumés are written in a variety of styles, all applications for jobs within a company are formatted in the same way. This makes it easy to compare applicants. Placing application forms side by side, you can immediately measure the education and experience of each candidate against the others. You can compare duration and types of experience and note salary variations.

Impressive resumés might make a candidate stand out, but when the resumé and application together are considered, you might find that the applicant with a less impressive resumé actually has a better background.

In addition to being a selection tool, the application form is a contract. Of course, it’s a one-sided contract in that it is written to protect the employer. Many attorneys strongly recommend that certain clauses be included in this document; some of the most important are covered in the following.

This covers two different types of investigation: checking references and using an investigative service to look into the applicant’s background. Because of concerns about litigation, many companies refuse to give information about former or current employees. By getting a release from the applicant authorizing the employer to provide information, you avert this concern. Many companies include a clause to cover this on their application forms; some provide it on a separate document. The following is an example of such a clause:

Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, if you use the services of an outside credit or investigative reporting agency, you must provide the applicant with a written notification that such a report might be ordered. The applicant must be advised that he or she has the right to request a copy of such a report from the agency that conducts the investigation. The name of this agency also must be provided to the applicant upon request.

If used, this clause should be printed on the application form in print that is no smaller than the rest of the application and should have space for the signature of the applicant and a witness. If you use investigative reports for only a few positions, develop a separate form to use when appropriate rather than printing it on the application.

Unless an employee is protected by an individual contract with the employer or a negotiated contract between the employer and a labor union, or is a civil service employee, the employee falls under employment at will status. This means that the employer has the right to terminate the services of that employee at any time, for any reason or for no reason at all so long as it complies with applicable laws such as the civil rights laws. You will find more on this in Chapter 25, “How to Fire an Employee Legally and Tactfully.”

Most employees in American companies fall into this category. However, to ensure that new employees are aware of this, it should be indicated on the application form (see the example in the suggested application form). By having the applicant sign the application form, he or she indicates understanding and acceptance of “employment at will.”

After you hire a person, you might find out that he or she lied in his or her application or resumé, or misrepresented an important factor. If this happens you should be able to take immediate action to terminate that person. The prototype application form in the previous section includes sample protective clauses. Have your company’s legal advisors word the clauses in a way specific to your company.

There are many things you can learn from the application form (and its accompanying resumé) that can help you narrow your selection of candidates. The following are some of the areas that should be carefully examined.

In reviewing the application form, determine whether the applicant has the basic requirements to do the job. Application forms usually don’t provide much space for details of experience. However, make sure that at least the basic educational requirements are met and the job history reflects the necessary experience. If so, prepare to explore this experience at the interview.

The applicant’s progress and growth in jobs and career should be evaluated as well as specific experience. If your job offers opportunity but demands ambition and drive, the applicant should have demonstrated these traits by the progress made in previous jobs.

Progress can be measured by positions held and salaries earned. A person who has worked for the same firm for many years and has received only automatic annual salary increases actually has made no real progress even though earnings have gone up. Position and salary should be compared with those of other people in that field who have similar education and experience.

The earnings record should not be the only measure of progress. It is more important to determine whether the applicant shows a pattern of increasing responsibility in his or her career. Have promotions been in line with the person’s experience? Has he or she moved more rapidly than might be expected? If so, was this due to personal capability and accomplishments? Was it due to growth of the industry or the company rather than individual efforts? Was it based on nepotism?

Another factor the application form indicates is job stability. Many employers will automatically reject an applicant who has changed jobs too often. Some companies have implemented this rule: If a person has had more than two jobs in five years or some similar combination of years and jobs, he or she is knocked out. There is much to be said in favor of this policy. Frequent job changes might indicate restlessness or boredom with a job; however, it’s unlikely that the candidate’s next job will be any different.

Some people are “two-yearers”—the time it takes to master the intricacies of the job and then tire of it. Others might be marginal workers—employees who are not bad enough to discharge but are the first to be laid off when business slows down. In other cases there might be personality problems. The employee might never have been able to get along with co-workers or managers.

On the other hand, it might be just bad luck. The person might be on the job only a short time when the company suffers a business reversal, massive downsizing, or a reorganization that eliminates the job. Sometimes a person might start a job and rapidly realize it was a mistake. It’s better to quit immediately than stay around just to keep the work record from looking bad.

Before arbitrarily rejecting an applicant as a job hopper, it’s important to determine the reason for the apparent instability. There are often good reasons one changes jobs. Don’t lose a potentially good employee because of some arbitrary policy on “instability.”

The application form might offer some insight into the applicant’s personality. It indicates whether the applicant can follow the simple directions required to complete it. In some employment offices, the length of time taken by an applicant to fill out the form is used as a measure of speed in performing clerical tasks. If the job calls for good handwriting, it also can be observed on the application form.

In some companies receptionists are trained to observe the manner in which applicants act when given the form. Do they get to work on it in a businesslike manner? Do they refer to notes? Do they ask questions about the form? If another person accompanies them, do they confer with that person before answering a question on the form?

Probably the most frequently used prescreening tool is the telephone. In a relatively brief telephone interview, you can acquire a lot more information about a candidate than can be obtained from the application or resumé. Telephoning not only enables you to get more information than shown on the resumé, but you can probe for details on specific areas that are important to the job you seek to fill.

It’s not a good idea to call the applicant at work to discuss your job opening. This is not only unethical; it puts the applicant in an awkward position as other people might be nearby who can hear the conversation. The call should be made to the person’s home in the evening. This might mean you have to make these calls from your home or work late at the office—that’s just one of the sacrifices that recruiters and managers have to make to get the people they want.

Plan the phone call as carefully as an in-person interview. Read the application and resumé and note the areas that require elaboration. Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions such as reasons for leaving a job, accounting for periods of unemployment, relations with superiors, and specific details about work or educational background. (Suggestions on how to conduct an interview will be covered in the next chapter; you can adapt these techniques to the telephone interview.)

Be certain you have set up an appointment in advance, so that the candidate expects the call. Otherwise you may be calling when the candidate is rushed and is too polite to say so, or even be mistaken for a telemarketer and hung up on.