There are hundreds of books on how to write resumes, but only few on how to actually review resumes. Here are some quick tips that will dramatically improve your resume evaluation skills.

1.) Be critical. An objective yet critical eye is imperative to evaluating resumes properly.  A resume is a basic tool for making an initial assessment and for identifying some of the key points that require further investigation.  If you accept everything as fact, you will never identify the points you need to probe in an interview nor will you really know which resumes stand out and which ones are filled with subtle red-flags.

When data is presented, ask how the 25% improvement in on-time performance was achieved? What specifically did the candidate have to do with achieving these results?  How was the turn-over rate reduced from 33% to 17% and again, how specifically was the candidate involved in achieving these results?

2.) Dismiss subjective assertions. If you want to test a resume for substance,  make a copy of the resume and use a red pen and strike out every unsubstantiated assertion.  If the copy is filled with red ink, it’s a good indication that this individual is sharing little substance and is hoping to trick you with a load of self-serving comments.  As a training exercise go through the following summary from a sample resume and simply strike every assertion that is based solely on the writer’s own perception.

Competitive, pragmatic and responsive Sales & Marketing management executive with a proven track record of success. Creative & persistent problem-solver who thrives on challenges, excels under pressure and gets the job done. Bright, bottom-line oriented team builder who possesses outstanding interpersonal and excellent communication skills. Hands-on leader and catalyst, organized & thorough planner, and capable negotiator especially effective dealing with senior management. Accustomed to a fast pace & multiple projects while consistently maximizing business opportunities, relationships and profits.

What do you have left?  If you say “absolutely nothing except that this person is likely a sales & marketing executive” you are correct.  The biggest mistake is to trust resumes like this.  Such resumes provide far less information than meets the eye. Well meaning, but untrained resume reviewers will believe they’ve got a star on their hands, when in fact such information should lead to greater scrutiny instead.

The best resumes share one secret ingredient.  They provide information and data that allows the reviewer to make the very assertions the writer wants to make - instead of them being spoon fed.  It’s very powerful when a reviewer can make the very assertions the writer was hoping to make. Why? Because people rarely disagree with their own assertions.  So having a reviewer make wonderful assertions about a candidate is far better than the candidate making them.

3.) List all questions and doubts. As you review a resume look for any points that create doubt, confusion, uncertainty, and misgivings.  These feelings point you to the very issues that need to be probed.  Do not sweep them aside. Too often hiring managers set aside lingering questions and/or doubts.  The candidate has created these feelings and you deserve to have them cleared up.  A poorly written resume will provide you with plenty to evaluate, if you still want to interview the candidate that is.   Don’t be satisfied with anything less than satisfactory explanations.

When possible, get additional feedback and verification, potentially from third parties if it can be done discretely and without exposing the candidate.  If nothing else, have the candidate provide references and contact these individuals to probe the issues you need clarity on.  They will provide an additional data point.

4.) Look for hard data. A resume should be non-fiction.  It should rest largely on data, details, and information that can be verified.  For instance, “managed a division of 2,000 employees” is something that typically should be easy to verify. An “MBA and experience with a start-up” are also things that can be verified.  As is “a 25% growth in revenue over 12 months.” Such concrete information should make up the bulk  of a resume.

5.) Find one glaring falsehood and you’re likely to find several more. When a candidate claimed he had been conferred a Bachelor’s degree from UCLA and it proved to be false, we combed through the rest of the resume and found out he had never worked at one company he claimed to have worked, and in another instance held only a Director title while his resume claimed he had been a Vice President.  It’s always good to verify a few easily verifiable points, such as the educational degrees.   If anything comes back fishy - it’s good to dig deeper or pass on the candidate entirely.

6.) Read the story behind the story. Often resumes have an underlying theme. Typically it’s a theme that seeks to address concerns or insecurities the candidate has about them self.  A resume that cites all kinds of education but where there is no discernible degree may be trying to hide a lack of education or an insecurity about their intellectual abilities.

A resume that fails to give the year of college graduation and starts with a Director position 15 years ago, is hiding something as well.  Most people will think the candidate is trying to conceal their age, which is immaterial.  However, the candidate may actually be hiding the fact they have plateaued. In one such instance, we learned that the candidate had 29 years of work experience but had never held a title beyond Director.  This is a red-flag that has nothing to do with age.  It goes to the question if they are capable of handling a Vice President position and if not, why not?  The missing information obscures a potential weakness that needs to be evaluated.  Without a full background this potential red-flag may have been missed.

Another example are dates of employment that are seamless by year only.  This can potentially hide involuntary departures or significant gaps of time between employment.  Of course such circumstances occur, but a confident professional is not afraid to explain the circumstances surrounding each departure.

The key is to determine that such employment gaps were not the norm.  A candidate attempting to hide such gaps is potentially hiding the fact that such gaps were more frequent and possibly hiding something material, such as a drug dependency, illegal behavior, inability to get along with other co-workers, incompetence, etc.  If you can identify an underlying theme it will typically point you to areas that deserve greater scrutiny.

7.) Grade the degree of clarity and focus, as well as the quality of the overall presentation. A resume communicates much more than a person’s background.  It exposes how well a person presents themselves in writing.  How well they know themselves.  Is the resume easy to read, well organized, displayed in a comfortable and logical format? Is the information substantive or hollow fluff?

It’s so important to glean more than the information the writer is trying to sell you.  This document is an example of how well this person organizes their thoughts, conveys their points, communicates with others, as well as, how well the candidate knows them self and how confident they are in sharing who they are.

8.) Play devil’s advocate. Just in case your assumptions about a person are wrong. Try and find evidence to the contrary.  Also seek independent references where possible.  A reference might be able to address some of your concerns.  It’s amazing how a strong, objective reference can either solidify your initial feelings or get you to look at the candidate in a completely different light.

One key skill to reviewing resumes is to always be open to the possibility you’re assumptions are wrong.  You set yourself up for disaster if you do nothing more than make a quick assessment and then only look for evidence that matches your incorrect assumption.  Be objective as you gather additional information.

Allow the information to guide you to wherever it takes you. Ultimately it’s about getting it right, not you being right.

I just read an article touting the use of a mentor programs as a good way to help new hires integrate into their new company and to develop people long-term. However, it’s been my experience that such programs yield limited results, often creating more busy work than results.

Some common problems with corporate mentor programs

Finding natural mentors

The real key is to identify natural mentors within organizations as well as to look for strong natural mentoring skills whenever you are conducting an external search to fill key executive positions. Natural mentoring skills aren’t easy to learn and it takes a certain kind of personality.

Perhaps the best way to develop new mentors is to have talented people work with the great “natural” mentors you identify within your organization. My experience is that some of the very best mentors are those people who were once under the wing of a great mentor themselves. But this is a long process that results in long term benefits. In a world driven by a short term focus - this is not something many companies deem important.

Jump start the number of good mentors in your organization

One way to expand mentoring is to encourage and reward “productive” mentoring, not just busy work, and to steadfastly seek mentoring skills with every key executive search you conduct. With most hiring managers this is nothing more than an afterthought and often not part of the selection criteria at all.

The most important thing to realize is that the best mentor programs are not the result of institutional processes developed by corporate and pushed out to managers in glossy manuals. That would be akin to taking glass and putting it under man made pressure and calling it a diamond.

Far better is to have the real thing and it starts with looking for them.

Also read “Re-discovering the value of mentors” for more detailed information.

I’m both perplexed and amused by the number of queries I’ve received in recent months from business journalists writing articles on how to on-board new hires into a company’s existing culture. The premise is that cultural misfits are inevitable and the inherent challenge is to turn misfits into good fits. Kind of like focusing on risky treatments for a disease that’s easily preventable. Why they don’t want to focus on preventing the disease is anyone’s guess.

Fit happens, it’s not manufactured

To me it’s obvious that the best way to handle “culture” integration is to hire people who fit your culture to begin with. I know this is less sexy than a comprehensive on-boarding program. But, why assume the risk of bringing people on-board who may fail to integrate culturally, when you can avoid it?

Corporate on-boarding has it’s place

This is no attack on the evolving practice of on-boarding. I believe on-boarding to be a valuable service to help speed the integration of executives into a company - but it’s best when focused on helping create a rapport with co-workers, providing insight on the operating dynamics, and speeding up the general learning curve so that new hires can be productive more rapidly than if left to their own devices.

But culture is altogether different. If you’re compatible with the prevailing culture your cultural integration will occur quickly and quite naturally. If you are incompatible with the prevailing culture, an on-boarding program will do little more than help cover up the disparity for a while.

Culture is not something you can learn in a week or two. If team work and integrity are core to your company’s culture - you have to look for these things in your candidates and not hope that an on-boarding program can teach these qualities.

Three simple steps to recruiting candidates who fit your culture.

1) Identify the core characteristics that define your company’s culture. You can’t begin to determine culture fit with a candidate, until you can define your company’s own culture. Isolate the key characteristics that define your culture and then prioritize them as best you can. Typically you will identify two or three core characteristics essential to fitting in with your company’s culture and a few less crucial characteristics that cement the culture fit.

2) Identify the behaviors and actions that best exemplify the characteristics you are looking for. Candidates should embody what you are looking for. Behaviors, in particular, are like “markers.” What kind of behaviors would you expect from somebody who embodies the characteristics you are looking for? List these key behaviors.

3) Assess candidates using behavioral interview techniques and thorough reference checks. The most effective way to ascertain key characteristics is to look for the behaviors you identified by creating open ended, behavioral questions that encourage candidates to express themselves with specific examples of how they did or would respond in certain situations.

A second important evaluation tool is the use of references. Tapping the knowledge of former co-workers and superiors provides important insights. Who better to know the characteristics and behaviors of a person than the people who have worked for years with a particular candidate?

Assessing culture avoids on-boarding risks

Many hiring managers wrongly believe that liking a candidate or having a good rapport with a candidate is a sign of a good fit. It’s not. I know this all too well. It happens I really like Porsche Carreras, but with a baby daughter and a wife who’s well aware of my history on Germany’s autobahns, a Porsche of any kind is not a good fit with our family. Don’t mistake “liking” a candidate as proof of a good fit.

A simple, objective process is more accurate. I’m not an advocate of complex solutions when they’re not needed. When it comes to assessing a candidate’s culture-fit, even a modicum of attention focused on this subject and a simple process like the one described above can greatly improve the odds of landing a good culture fit.

Learning Journeys is a powerful and enlightening book. Though it’s focus is primarily on helping people become better mentors and leaders, it’s much more - it’s about self-discovery and personal growth.

A number of chapters make up each section. Beyond sections on leadership and mentoring, there are ones that cover:

• Seeing Yourself As Others Do
• Developing Self-Knowledge
• Unlearning What You Thought Was So
• Pain Is a Great Teacher

Forty-one different authors contributed to this book; all of whom are noteworthy experts on these subjects and who come from business, consulting, and academia. Individual contributors include Stephen Covey, Dave Ulrich, and Spencer Johnson.

Learning Journeys is an inspirational compilation that can be described as a mini-Ph.D. course in life, learning, and self-discovery. It will resonate powerfully with people who are introspective and who are by nature interested in self-development and life long learning.

This book is a gem.

Have you read a book that you consider “must read”? If so, please let me know by replying to this post. If you do not see a reply box, please click on the title of this post and scroll to the bottom.