Screening Methods and its Challenges

(Intro IVR : 22 sec)

Generally our screening is done in two ways.

Firstly, it is Manual Resume Screening.

You do not use software or tools in Manual Resume Screening and each profile is manually scanned whether your parameters are visible inside it or not and on the basis of that, you prepare a short list.

The second one which is our screening method, is through Resume Screening Tools.

Now these tools are generally software baseda which automate many things and at the same time there is also an element of artificial intelligence inside it which makes things faster and more accurate.

So if we talk about manual resume screening, then there are advantages and disadvantages as well.

So what are their advantages, first of all because we are reading every resume manually, then if someone has used very good language or mentioned some points which can make them stand out from the rest of the candidates then we can also know that easily.

And a good candidate who can probably miss the systems because of keyboard search which we can find easily through manual resume screening.

We can review every resume with another position.

Maybe say for example, if any one person X is not suitable for the current open position applied for but suitable for any other position, then we also recommend him directly for that position and can request follow-up information before qualifying or disqualifying a candidate.

Now what are the disadvantages of manual resume screening?

First of all it is a time consuming job.

You are studying each resume, put it in the short list, then it takes a lot of time inside.

And sometimes what happens, you can review the same resume multiple times, so for example, if someone has an applicant who has applied again and again and changed the format in it, since then you can review the same resume multiple times.

Now the time and effort has to be taken for all the candidates and also for those who are qualified and also for those who do not qualify.

Then it is a lot of laborious tasks in which you have to do a lot of hard work in terms of qualifying one particular candidate for the interview.

Now when we manually screen a resume, then there is one human tendency, that is bias.

So, either we see the format of the resume and after seeing the language, maybe we have the bias for it, then it will tilt towards the particular candidate.

Then what will happen is that we will see that particular candidate in a biased way either favorable or unfavorable.

So these are the pros and cons of Manual Resume Screening.

Now let's talk about Resume Screening Tools.

The resume screening tools are generally very fast and they provide an efficient review process overall.

Because this entire software is driven, then there is generally no one bias in it and whatever the candidate's information is, in an organized way, it is maintained by law and eventually whenever we want to refer back about it, then we can do it easily.

The resume screening tools track each resume and shorten it to a particular format so that it is easy to retrieve and has keyword identifiers inside that the employer supplies, based on which the entire process becomes very fast.

Now the cons of this, it is first of all that suppose the keywords searches are very specific and because of that the qualified candidates who are there, we might miss them.

Say for example, if the employer has put in the keyword, business development and the candidates are supposed to be the key accounts manager, then the work more or less is the same but the candidate put in the key accounts manager and the employer has put in the business development manager then mismatch has come somewhere.

Work is the same but the resume screening tool will not recognize this thing.

Now because this resume screening tool depends on only AI that is Artificial Intelligence and not a human eye and not a human intelligence to sort candidates so somewhere there are chances of mistakes in it.

Their pricing is very costly for those who are small businesses.

Because many modules are integrated in it, the whole package at times becomes very costly and not every business can afford it so they prefer manual screening only.

Now as I mentioned, the resume screening tools do not differentiate between similar titles and uniquely worded experience types.

It is their shortcoming.

In an insight scenario we need manual screening.

So whenever there is a mass recruitment drive in it for an initial shortlist maybe you can use resume screening tools.

Primarily because you have to save your time so that you can also shortlist the worthy candidates.

So when we are doing the screening resume, then we start seeing some red flags that are warning signals about a candidate we start to see.

So what are basically potential problems, you would like to clarify by taking a follow-up from now on.

So generally what happens is that some red flags overall which is the candidate's profile outweighs them.

That means they become much bigger and more important than the candidate's profile.

Some red flags that you always have to keep in mind whenever you are screening a candidate's profile are first of all unexplained gaps in employment.

Second brief tenure from job to job.

Sloppy resume and personal data or lacking professional details.

Now we start looking at the details about all these things.

The first thing is unexplained gaps in employment.

What is this generally the work history of any applicant, how is it visible?

Are there long breaks between jobs?

However, we cannot hold him against a candidate but we need to know his explanation.

That is why the breaks are so long.

It may be because of some military service or because of starting a family or someone in the family needs a candidate's care where someone is suffering from a long term illness, then at that time the candidate has taken a gap in the career or some accident or due to the illness also this type of long breaks can come.

Then anyone who is a serious candidate will be ready to explain these gaps with substantial proof.

Now generally what happens is that there are so many recruiters who hold the unexplained gaps against the candidate.

But don't do this because you don't know what the candidate has faced.

So until and unless you see it, what was the reason behind this long gap? So based on that you can take the final call.

It is not right to put someone in the dock by assuming according to his own, that's why whoever is the serious candidate, you asked him why it is a gap and if you find his justification reasonable, then and only then you proceed ahead with this candidate.

Next comes Brief tenure from job to job.

Now this is job hopping and this is such a red flag that you all know a lot to be aware about.

If in a short period a lot of job changes have been done the candidate knows that if many employers have been changed, then it generally signifies the lack of commitment or also signifies behavioral concern.

Again, here it is always better to ask the reasons why so many frequent job changes have been done because in my experience when a candidate has a lot of personal problems at that time perhaps this job hopping trend has been seen.

But you should verify well for your satisfaction that why this job hopping is going on and then take a call.

Then comes Sloppy Resume.

Sloppy Resume is generally too unprofessional and full of errors.

Good examples of resumes will be found online and if a candidate is not able to find out time to go online and see samples of some resumes and then make his resume, then perhaps there is a lack of professional commitment in him.

And you may also pass on such candidates by not shortlisting them in the next process.

Because what is there and what is in your resume is the first one of your candidature as representing you with the recruiter and if the same thing is not made perfect then you can imagine that how seriously will the candidate take things going forward?

Next comes personal data or lacking professional details.

Remember a resume is a document to display your professional life.

It is not a document to share about hobbies, trips, family members, etc.

Share as much as you want to share in very short paragraphs. That's about it.

If you want to see more than that, the person has filled in the details to fill the page and the person is actually not interested.

The candidate engaged with the business at hand that he has to present, that is his focus is on that and shares professional experience, skills and qualifications give him more attention compared to one who is sharing you social media relevant details.

Now whenever we talk about red flags, it is not necessary that he has to take you against a candidate all the time.

You should verify why the candidate is doing that and based on that you should make the decision.

However there are some cases like personal data and professional details are not shared properly, resumes are not made properly and in that scenario you should definitely take a direct call and then you can proceed ahead with your decision.

Now, generally when we talk about the process of screening, there are primarily two challenges in front of us.

The first is the volume, the second is the quality.

First we talk about volume.

So whenever you enter any job posting, you start getting this many resumes, and this many applications.

Any average job opening you can see this on naukri.com, or linkedin.com. You will get two hundred and fifty resumes comfortably in it.

And out of that eighty-eight percent are unqualified.

You can see how these tasks become so laborious if we do it through the manual process and generally at which we have sophisticated systems that at times mark the qualified candidates as unqualified.

If you want to understand on an average, any one recruiter spends at least twenty-three hours particularly in its screening.

And screening is what it takes most of the time.

Now let's talk about the quality.

No doubt we have a lot of resumes but sixty percent talent acquisition leaders is his top recruiting Key Performance Indicator is quality of hire.

There are different ways to measure the quality of hire too.

More than fifty percent measure the quality from the performance of the new hire.

Forty-nine percent measure the quality of hire through turnover till how long the candidate is retained?

And forty-three percent of recruiters measure quality of hire through hiring manager satisfaction.

Now this is what you must have seen, probably will not be a hundred percent total because the recruiters were given them multiple choices to opt.

That's why you see that you are getting this fifty, forty-nine, forty-three types of percentages are available but this is also a remarkable number.

We get it right, what is that the recruiters, the talent acquisition leaders prefer in current times.

If we talk about quality then what are the criteria of quality, what are the parameters for these talent acquisition leaders?

So now if we talk about manual screening, maybe we can manage it, but a lot of difficulties will also come to us, so that's why many organizations take the support of technology and include them for resume screening.

There is intelligent screening software which automates resume screening with the help of artificial intelligence.

So our historical hiring decision, which is the program of artificial intelligence, draws the insights and makes a method of its own so that the quality of hire that we have is improvised to a great extent and the employee turnover eventually starts decreasing.

If we look at the overall picture of using technology then you save more than twenty-three hours per hire that is per job you saved it.

There is no disruption to your regular workflow because you have a system that's working for you and your attrition decreased by thirty-five percent in an organization.

Performance increased by more than twenty percent and revenue per employee increased by four percent.

Then this is the win-win situation in one way where we take the help of technology, then our life simplifies to a great extent and our decisions become improvised.

So with this, if you have any comment from this course, then click on the discussion button given below this video and post it there.

This way you can discuss the course with a lot of learners like yourself and share your insights. Thank you!

(Outro : 18 sec)