[All Things Quality] 3 Characters Missing From A Resume

Hi there. I'm a resume, and I represent a candidate for the open position. Filter me.

I had been trying to fill an open position for quite some time.

Now that we are part of a big corporation, the hiring process involved the creation of a job description and inputting it into the system, and a discussion with the (remote) internal recruiter. We talked about the needs of the position, the characteristics of a good candidate, and the technical skills that would help a person succeed in this role.

I conducted phone interviews with a number of candidates, and face-to-face interviews with some, but hadn't yet found the right person.

One of the QAers on my team mentioned that he was going to refer a friend. This is always a good thing - good for me, since I get access to people that my terrific team members think would fit, and good for my team member, since he can earn a significant referral bonus. The process requires that the referred candidate's information and resume get entered into the system, that it go through the internal recruiter, and then eventually come to me.

But after a week, I hadn't seen this particular candidate's resume come through! So I contacted our internal recruiter and asked about him.

The recruiter indicated that since XML was one of the technologies I mentioned as being important, and since the candidate didn't mention XML on his resume, the recruiter hadn't considered this candidate as qualified. I asked that the candidate be moved forward anyway. copyrightjoestrazzere

When conducting a phone interview with this candidate, I quickly learned that he was clearly well-versed in XML, and just hadn't considered it important enough to mention on his resume. In the end, we hired him, so all's well that ends well, I suppose.

But I almost missed out on a really good candidate due to 3 missing characters.

In thinking back, I have been trying to determine what I should have done differently. I have to let the recruiter do his job, and I have to let him filter out unqualified versus qualified candidates - otherwise I'd be forced to read through thousands of applicants' resumes. Perhaps I was too strict in my qualification, but XML was really important for this particular role. Perhaps I should have asked to see some of the rejected resumes early in the process to make sure the recruiter's filter was appropriate for the open position.

Anyway, when I re-write my resume, I might consider somehow squeezing in keywords representing every single technology I've ever touched, so that I don't miss out on great opportunities for which I'm clearly qualified. I don't want to be omitted by an over-zealous recruitment filter!



This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality
My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.