How Do Recruiters Select Resumes?

ARTICLE

Recruiters receive hundreds of applicants (some even thousands) per job position they hire.

So, how do they select the resumes they eventually choose?

Their tracking system implements Google-like tools that allow recruiters to have the resumes matched for keywords. However, this is far from the entire hiring process. Recruiters have a significantly more complicated system of choosing candidates, which includes many steps before they eventually consider the resumes that best reply to the job position advertised. Below is a breakdown of that process, for your reference.

First and foremost, a recruiter finds many candidates that meet the minimum requirements. If a recruiter sends more than 12-18 candidates per position to the hiring manager, he or she risks showing a lack of understanding of the minimum criteria applied and that he or she has been ineffective in the pre-screening phase. Recruiters, on the other hand, might argue that the criteria set by the hiring manager are impossible to meet 100%.

So, a good recruiter first forwards a batch of up to 6 resumes to check the hiring manager’s flexibility regarding the criteria applied and whether he/she (the recruiter) is on the right track. Needless to say, those in that first batch have much better chances of getting early interviews and, therefore, getting the job. This means that you DEFINITELY need to be among the 3-6 resumes that a hiring manager will first see.

Note that the majority of recruiters don’t have exclusives on job openings, except for rare occasions. Being in competition with other recruiters makes them want to be the ones that send the best applicants to the hiring manager first, and also be fast enough so that the candidate doesn’t get a job from another recruiter.

How do they select the candidates they submit to the hiring manager?

Top of mind – They select candidates they know well. These are the most placeable candidates on their list. However, with so many resumes per day, a recruiter’s mind is easily lost, when they find a new “star”, which means that applicants have to find ways to get and then remain a recruiter’s first consideration. Most recruiters use a white board where they list their leading candidates, as a means to remind themselves (and their teams) of their best. If you land there, you get submitted for jobs that fit your background and skills more frequently.

Search their database – Most recruiters have databases full of pre-screened candidates that they have talked to. Matches from there are presented more quickly to the hiring manager. How to get in a recruiter’s database will be discussed in full detail in another post.

LinkedIn/Google Search – It is every recruiter’s job to find candidates that the hiring manager can’t. That’s what they are paid for, after all. Many recruiters aren’t paid if the applicant’s resume is posted on a job board or the hiring company has found a candidate already. This is the case with recruiters that work under contracts. Both LinkedIn and Google are free and list candidates that are currently employed. Also, these sources help employers find candidates with more technical knowledge than others since one needs to be more tech savvy to be findable on LinkedIn and Google. Most of the times, recruiters combine their searches with Facebook, Twitter and other social media searches.

As a last resort, recruiters tend to consider reaching out to ad responses and major job board resume databases to find a suitable candidate that meets minimum criteria. Of course, they don’t want to consume more time to review resumes and screen candidates over the phone, which is why they usually wait a couple of weeks to exhaust their other resources, before they consider applicants that have replied to jobs on job boards. Not to mention that access to a job board database (for just a single job board resume database) costs a lot of money.