We are amidst a wave of disruptive technologies, to the extent we might not even know how much of our choices are impacted by technology! Right from personalized dating suggestions; to food recommendations; to highly customized content in our feeds, technology has overhauled almost every aspect of our lives to give us personalized suggestions and help us make data-driven choices. One area that can benefit from this and catch up is HR, especially hiring.

The biggest question that can be solved here is - How to evaluate the future workforce? Post the pandemic, hiring is all the more at crossroads with this question. CVs are no longer adequate - they don’t reflect the true potential of a candidate, they don’t reflect the qualities required to succeed in modern workplaces; in fact, they might even deter talented candidates, the hidden gems, from even hitting the radar.

Why are resumes ineffective?

Overloaded with information : Many studies around hiring processes talk that enough time isn’t spent on resumes while screening them. If you’ve been part of the hiring process, you might even relate to this fact!

In fact, going deeper, this study laid out how exactly a resume is surfed. Hiring managers look at your current title and organization on the resume and compare it to your previous one. Then, they move to see the chronology of your jobs to make sure you have made a steady progression. Next, they check at the bottom to look at education requirements. It can truly just take seconds to sum up your candidature with a resume! Many studies around hiring processes talk that enough time isn’t spent on resumes while screening them. If you’ve been part of hiring processes, you might even relate to this fact!

No objective process : Usually, there is no standardized process for reviewing resumes in a corporate. There are no formal metrics to assess the efficiency, validity, and reliability of the resume review process. Recruiters or hiring managers are not necessarily trained or evaluated on the accuracy of their resume screening. Many firms use screening software to analyze and rank resumes - but if the system is not programmed correctly or with the right keywords, the screening process is subjected to a large number of errors. Even companies like Amazon have discovered their automated resume screening tools introduced biases without them even knowing about it. Lastly, there are no post-hiring processes to check if those with the highest-rated resumes (or interview scores) turn out to be the top performers on the job.

Self-reported : Instead of providing information that you need to hire someone (their potential or proof of work or cognitive/behavioral/social skills that make them excel at work), resumes are just self-reported descriptions of the candidates’ past work. Candidate’s bias and selective memory might result in a below-accurate description of actual occurrence.

If you rely on them, you are likely making decisions based on incorrect information. In fact, the 100% honest resumes may get penalized (or even screened out) as recruiters can “discount” what they find on resumes to take into account the expected “half-truth” information.

Built-in Biases : A report from Harvard talked about Degree inflation, the phenomenon of the requirement of degree or high qualification for jobs that previously have not required them. This phenomenon has itself become a pandemic, adds socio-economic bias, and is highly skewed against alternately-valuable career paths and on-the-job experiences. Preferences toward higher-ranking or selected schools is a very commonly occurring bias.

Then, there is also ‘familiarity bias’ or ‘looking glass merit’. We naturally appreciate those who have comparable experiences to us - such as being more accepting of those who went to the same institution or similar ranking school. Non-traditional job seekers also face biases due to resumes. People associate time spent at a job or between jobs to indicate the applicant’s dedication, work ethic, etc. In reality, people take breaks between jobs for various reasons, and that is not a reflection of their work ethic. Resumes can also imbue racial or gender biases, which harm organizations even though it can be completely unintentional.

Pedigree based : Resumes highlight applicants’ past achievements and experience. While they are good at showcasing formal skills, they’re not very useful for knowing anything important beyond that. Resumes can lay out the functional skills of a candidate. But the map of their traits or soft skills, which are equally, if not more, important predictors of job fit/success, get completely missed out. Hence, probing in subsequent assessment rounds just on the basis of a resume becomes guesswork. In reality, hiring managers don’t have enough information beyond the functional skills of the candidate.

Coloured truth or discoloured : Some candidates look to have cracked this piece of the puzzle - they become keyword experts. So their resumes score higher when assessed by screening software, even though their experiences and skills might be comparable to other applicants.

On the other hand, if the applicant doesn’t properly understand the importance of using keywords in their resume, it will automatically be ranked lower. Candidates who submit shorter resumes may also suffer from keyword deficits. This keyword problem is compounded if the applicant comes from another industry, where different keywords words are used. Even though their keywords might imply the same thing, screening software might miss them.

Not reflective of performance on job : To sum it up, a century of data tells us that the candidate with coveted degrees, top grades, and lucrative on-paper work experiences - even in the ‘right’ industry - isn’t always the ‘right’ candidate. The reason for this issue is that resumes can’t truly reveal job skills. They instead speak if the candidate has done something that ‘looks like’ the job posting in the past.

This approach not only fails to predict performance but also deepens already existing demographic inequalities in the workforce, stalling socio-economic mobility and scaring off potential employees.

Does all this mean we end using resumes? Probably no, they still serve as indicators of the functional skills and achievements of a person. But as we move to an era where finding quality talent is increasingly high, attrition is endemic, and unearthing hidden gems is the key to building performance-led bias-free teams - we need to look into facets of knowing talent much deeper in ways beyond the resume.

In the next article, you will see how you can build a more ‘human’ way of hiring and reduce losing talent to the biases that unknowingly plague our hiring processes. So let's move on to next ladder! Time to Build a More ‘Human’ Approach to Hiring