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Discussion on: Résumé / CV Sift

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gypsydave5 profile image
David Wickes

I have an actual job to do at the same time

This is poorly worded. Perhaps I should say that I'm not a professional recruiter and have other priorities to manage? Recruitment, like child care and keeping a house, is a full time job. And just as exhausting...

Throwing away candidates with low attention to detail to save time is throwing away potentially excellent people.

At every stage of a recruitment process you're throwing away potentially excellent people. You have to accept that. And you're always doing it to save time. What you're trying to do is maximise your discrimination while minimising your effort. If you wanted to give everyone the absolutely fairest chance you'd have them all interviewed by the same people, in the same room, at the same time of day, with no screening. Far too much time and effort, and even then you'd miss some great people.

So you've got to find ways of reducing the number of candidates -- narrowing the funnel -- as soon as possible. Telephone interviews. Tech tasks for people to do at home. Multiple rounds. All with benefits and drawbacks.

If you, or your organisation, has decided to recruit using the "CV and covering letter in response to a job description" approach, then you have to decide what that's for? Are you going to sift some of those CVs away? Which ones?

Hard to do when every CV is entry level and looks the same. And so we get to 'reject typos and more than two pages'. Because, frankly, if the candidate doesn't care enough about their CV to do it properly, then why should I?

I would make exceptions for positive discrimination, i.e. ensuring underrepresented minorities get through the first stage no matter what.

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charlesdlandau profile image
Charles Landau • Edited

If you wanted to give everyone the absolutely fairest chance you'd have them all interviewed by the same people, in the same room, at the same time of day, with no screening. Far too much time and effort, and even then you'd miss some great people.

I hope you mean you'd control for all those conditions but still do interviews separately. You'd miss a lot of great people with group interviews -- they're a terrible idea. Group interviews with no screening are worse.

  1. You walk into a room and say who has any experience with Framework? Everyone who doesn't raise their hand spent their afternoon and travel money to leave in the first minute.
  2. You have N minutes in front of this group. The most assertive loudmouth will get more minutes of your attention. Are loudmouths better devs?
  3. Accessibility?!?!?!
  4. Many developers completely withdraw from the application if you mention group interviews

I would make exceptions for positive discrimination, i.e. ensuring underrepresented minorities get through the first stage no matter what.

???

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gypsydave5 profile image
David Wickes

I hope you mean you'd control for all those conditions but still do interviews separately.

I certainly do. I agree with your comments regarding group interviews.

???

Care to elaborate?

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charlesdlandau profile image
Charles Landau

I'm happy to elaborate.

I would make exceptions for positive discrimination, i.e. ensuring underrepresented minorities get through the first stage no matter what.

...is a very different attitude and approach from what I usually see. If you want an inclusive hiring process I think it's harder than just ensuring all the people from underrepresented groups skip one stage of the process, which is how I read this part of your comment. I'd be the first to say I'm not an expert but I certainly made the (???) face when I read that quote.

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gypsydave5 profile image
David Wickes

If you want an inclusive hiring process I think it's harder than just ensuring all the people from underrepresented groups skip one stage of the proces

Can't argue with this - there's 1001 things that everyone can do to make the whole hiring process more equitable, and I'm not saying this is my silver bullet or anything. It's just something I'd consider doing.