Someone who knows their field well can express an idea more succinctly and clearly than someone with less training /skill.
Further, I wouldn't be particularly interested in working for someone who "has an hour to go through a stack of 200 resumes", because it's highly likely they're similarly flippant and superficial in all their work.
Studies have shown that in the US the average time spent per resume is 12 seconds.
Not superficial, just overworked.
as i said: last 3 positions in detail with achievements is enough.
ch-expat is right: 45sec and the HR-person needs to get the impression: match, on pile for interview.
Hiring good staff is a core part of being manager. You should be making time to do it properly.
That just means the average manager isn't doing their job, which I'm sure will come as no surprise to the average employee.
No-one can derive anything meaningful from a Resume in 12 seconds. You may as well just send them back to HR with instructions to randomly throw half of them in the bin. At least that would be somewhat honest.
If a manager can't do a core part of their job properly (hiring staff), I see no reason to believe they can do any other parts of their job properly either.
I'm beginning to think that no-one here stays in the same job for more than a year, has been in the workforce for more than 5, or actually does anything in their job.
It is not that demanding to weed out the resumes from people that have a low GPA from a not so good school or that are verbose and sloppy when you are looking for an entry level position for example. I have always insisted on getting all the resumes while HR was offering me to have the first pass done by a machine reader that selects them on buzzwords.
Also nothing replaces a long face to face interview with difficult technical questions. I have seen too often eloquent resumes from people who barely speak English. So at the end, I prefer to bring in more people or call them than to spend too much time on their resume.
At the end of my corporate career, of course I had a staff that went over resumes. I insisted however to always meet the person my staff wanted to make an offer to regardless of the position.
Frankly, at the end of the day, I don't think we are really disagreeing on anything.
Companies that receive large numbers of speculative CVs will often delegate initial selecting to a junior member of HR dept. who will eliminate many on basic criteria. This may include the number of pages.
If I feel I need to get someone actually in to an interview just to determine whether or not they are capable of doing the job, their Resume goes to the bottom of the pile. Why ? Because an interview is a disruptive process for not only me, but also anyone else who needs to be involved (usually at least one other member of my team). To spend the prep time, co-ordinate a space in my calendar with everyone else, then get into the interview and find out in 5-10 minutes (or, worse, 30-40 minutes) that the applicant is incapable of doing the job, is, to be blunt, an enraging process.
For example: if I get a Resume from someone claiming to have 20+ years of Systems Admin experience, and been in their last few jobs for 4-5 years each, but they only have about a page and a half of responsibilities and achievements from those three jobs combined, my reaction is going to be "well, you didn't do a lot while you were there, did you?".
The purpose of a job interview, in my mind, is to discover a) whether or not the candidate is just bluffing, and b) whether they're a good fit for the company. It is NOT to discover whether or not they are technically competent. I consider the interview to be the final stage of the hiring process, not a beginning or intermediate one.
Well, I must say I've never been in that situation. The most involved job applications I've ever done have been for University and Government-based jobs in Australia, that typically involve addressing specific selection criteria, usually at about 1/2 to a page each (and there's usually about five of them). These are submitted, along with the Resume, as part of the application process.
With reference to CV's being followed by a formal application, I was mainly thinking of speculative applications. It is pointless sending in a long CV in these instances. If there is something that interests the employer, that is when they may invite you to apply with a formal application form.
For advertised postions, my experience is either a CV or an application form. I think that it is unusual to have both.
Personally, I don't trust a resume. I have seen some fantastic ones that were just copied from somebody else. I only trust a solid exam. Go to the white board and solve me this differential equation...
I am talking pure engineering, maybe IT is different.
That is to say, whether it's even worth inviting them in for an interview.
A job advertisement will rarely cover *all* aspects of the position. The person hiring for it however, will (or certainly should) have a very good idea of the skill set and experience required. The value of an information-laden Resume is being able to look at that extra information and figure out whether they match all the aspects of the job that weren't in the ad.
The problem is if they can't even demonstrate the basic knowledge, you've wasted probably 30-60 minutes of your time (and likely other people's time as well) to figure that out.
Sure, people can make **** up on Resumes. But while it's trivial to make up a dozen buzzword-laden bullet points of fluff, coming up with a few pages consistently and coherently outlining interwoven responsibilities and achievements (and hopefully a steady increase thereof) in prior jobs is substantially more difficult.
Like I said, in my opinion, by the time someone gets to the interview then - assuming the information on their Resume is accurate - you should already have decided they're _capable_ of doing the job.
The problem I have is that some of the jobs you might use certain skills that you dont use frequently, or you might not use them when working with Mainframe /Windows but you do on Unix ...
When you arrive and get a surprise test I put on the test where I would find the information especially when flags etc change between versions or vendor implementations of solutions. sometimes that is enough, sometimes it is not.
I dont provide detailed information on projects over 10 years old.
The space taken by educational qualifications for me takes up most of a page between industry and academic certifications.
like following example...
imagine an job advert for a petrol station worker
it says 5-6 years experince in fuelling cars, little car maintenance,
some help in the shop and taking care of warehouse
administrative work
there is no real clean profile what e.g. the administrative work is about, what means maintenance of cars and how does the warehouse part look like?
so id call and ask:
maintenance of cars...
q:am i meant to look after engines, broken parts?
a:yes, its about xyz.
q:changing wheels?
a:yes, mostly when season changes, summer and winter.
q:how much of my daily routine is that about?
a:60%
and so i ask the person on every point that is not 100% clear to me.
why? during that questionaire i made some notes what i need to put in weighted after the importance of the profile, what main skills are requested? like that in my former position i was responsible for maintenance of cars off all types. that i did oil exchange for all brands of cars, that i have developed a way to do it 10minutes quicker (achievement) and that i do transfer on all other tasks. and i top it up with maybe all courses i did for changing wheels on a special training at michelin and bridgestone.
i leave out all other stuff that i took care of cleaning windows of cars and that i have a certain paper stating that i been on a course for it as it is not requested and so on. its of NO USE to send in unspecific papers, achievements, courses that have no relevance about the future job.
thats how i stick perfectly fine to my 2paper CV, all points weighted after the advert, info given. all buzzwords in i hear on the fon...bang! interview!
If the candidate is good, then he will see 10 people or so following my interview. Sometimes I pair interviewers which seems to work well.