Reading between the lines

 There are a few things in life that you can guarantee but one of them is that when it comes to looking for new employees, there is never a good time. Let’s face it; recruiting is often a frustrating task that seems to take forever to conclude. Luckily though, the process is made that little bit easier by the fact that potential candidates are required to submit a Curriculum Vitae (CV) outlining their past work experience.

CVs are extremely useful because they allow you to come to a quick decision about whether someone if right for a particular position or not. In fact, in an ideal world, such documents should tell you all you need to know about a person so that as owner manager, you can decide whether to take the recruitment process a step further and call them in for an interview.

 

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A curriculum vitae is an employer’s first real opportunity to weigh up whether someone is right for a job with their firm. Therefore it’s essential that firms don’t just casually peruse CVs to see whether a candidate has the right qualifications and professional experience. By reading between the lines, recruiters can find out much more than just what an individual puts down on paper.

CV tells the tale

According to Liz Leavy, managing director of the recruitment firm, Sales Placement Limited, you can tell an awful lot about a person from their curriculum vitae. “The first thing to look at is how someone has put their CV together,” said Leavy. “So many CVs come in to us with spelling mistakes it’s unbelievable. This shows a lack of care and a lack of attention to detail because if someone can’t take the time necessary to compile a proper CV then they’re likely to be as sloppy in their work. She continued, ‘Obviously, if there’s just one small error on the page then you would let it go but if there are a number of them then this is something that employers should be seeing as a bad thing.’

How the CV looks is also incredibly important and gives valuable pointers as to how well someone can put across information. For example, if someone has an essay-type document then this shows that the candidate in question is not well versed in being able to communicate concisely. ‘CVs need to be clear and easy to read because they’re essentially sales documents,’ said Leavy. ‘Essay-type CVs that run on for pages aren’t good because employers don’t want to have to drill-down to find information. It is far better if candidates highlight their experience via a series of bullet points because this makes it far easier for owner managers to get to the crucial data.’

It’s all in the detail

According to Leavy, many candidates aren’t very good at knowing what information to put in and what to leave out. “Often people leave essential information out of their CVs,” she said. “For example, someone might send in a four page CV which will have their Inter Cert and Leaving Cert results in addition to their degree results. This simply doesn’t make any sense because if you’ve put down that you have a degree then it will be assumed that you have the earlier qualifications anyway. Yet at the same time that person may leave out information that is relevant to the role. For example they might have three jobs listed on their CV but only have a brief paragraph about their current job while former posts get more written about them. This simply doesn’t make sense. The only thing it does tell a recruiter is that the person who’s written their CV wasn’t thinking straight when they were compiling it.’ A lot of people tend to put in excess information but then forget to put in achievements hat are relevant to the role such as how much a person helped their company to grow. But an even bigger omission that recruiters should look for is gaps in someone’s curriculum vitae. ‘You’re looking for gaps and anomalies on someone’s CV,’ Leavy said. ‘For example, if you have someone saying that they left college in 2000 but their work experience doesn’t begin until 2003 then that’s a discrepancy and it’s important to find out what they were doing during that period. Obviously there may well be perfectly acceptable reasons why there are gaps on an individual’s CV but it pays to find out why the information been left out.’

Spot the porky pies

Another key thing to look out for is lying. According to a number of surveys conducted over the year, a large percentage of people admit to telling porky pies on their curriculum vitaes. Trying to find out how truthful someone is through their CV is no easy matter and a key advantage of choosing a recruitment firm to look after the hiring process is their expertise in this area.

Hobbies and interests

Surprisingly enough, Leavy claims that someone’s hobbies and interests can tell you a lot about a candidate as well. ‘These are important clues to a person’, said Leavy.  ‘If I’m looking to recruit someone as part of a team then I’m likely to be turned off by an individual who lists mountain climbing and running as their hobbies because this might signify that they’re something of a loner. This doesn’t mean that they may not be the right person for the job but something that a recruiter should focus on if they’re called in for interview. Likewise, you might be put off by someone who lists jumping out of planes and driving fast cars on their CVs because that person is a thrill seeker and may not be right to work within your organisation.’ When assessing someone’s curriculum vitae there are a number of essentials that need to be met in order for the person to stand a chance at securing the post. ‘You need to look at the experience that an individual has and satisfy yourself that the person can do the job required,’ claims Leavy. ‘Do they have the ability and the track record for the post? If not, then it’s not worth calling them for interview.’

Staying the distance

Longevity is also very important. ‘If you have a CV in front of you from someone that states that a person has had eight jobs in eight years then you should probably be wary of employing that person because in all likelihood they’re not going to be spending too much time with your firm. Ideally you’re looking for stability from a candidate and you want to see signs of leadership so that they can potentially be groomed for big things,’ concludes Leavy.