Resumes are dead.
Anyone can create the fluffiest job description and experience, find a nice looking word document template and voila – a resume!
After reading enough resumes, I started to see similarities…undeniable patterns from one to another.
Statements such as “…increased the company’s revenue by 60%,” or “…improve campaign ROI by 7x,” or “…drove revenues from $100k to $600k in my first year at the job.”
THOSE ARE AMAZING!!
But…
Perhaps I’m a skeptic. If there are so many qualified marketing experts out there, then why are companies having such are hard time finding the right person?
Just on Indeed.com there are over 1k+ job openings for digital marketers in the L.A. market.
Fluffy Resumes
The job market is tough. Every employer wants to hire the best. Some are willing to pay for top talent, while others will sacrifice quality for lower costs candidates.
VC-backed companies pay premium salaries for the best hires. What ends up happening when the talent pool is exhausted, the market is left with less qualified individuals. This self-selection is no surprise.
As a result, they can’t find a job that pay enough to cover living expenses and move back home.
But.
Before things get gloomy, one last attempt at a cushy paycheck, resumes start to get fluffier because they read somewhere on the internet on “How to write a great resume.”
So you should create tripwire questions that can help you filter.
But first, let’s take a look at these pitfalls, and make sure you ask the right questions:
Resumes are inaccurate because:
- They don’t reflect the true character of the applicant and more often that not doesn’t match reality
- They only get you through the gatekeepers but won’t survive the interview rounds
- They are easy to exaggerate with some coaching and editing
- They don’t indicate if you are going to be a cultural fit within the organization
Resumes don’t reflect true character.
That means your potential employer does not know if you are boring as a watching paint dry, life of the party, crazier than an outhouse fly, or happy as a clam…I could on and on 🙂
In the past, I would get impressed by resumes and set up interviews only to find out that in-person after a 30-minute interview that it wasn’t a fit.
To be clear, I qualified the candidate over the phone.
But I didn’t ask right questions. Completely different than what I ask today to filter out the good from bad.
If you have made bad hires – reflect on what went wrong. Were they not qualified? Or were they not culturally aligned? Or was misrepresentation the culprit.
Resume is a bad survival tool.
Getting a sit at the interview table means nothing. I’ve been there more times than I can remember at companies of all sizes. I even had a chance at RIOT Games (AWWWWSOME office!!! I still dream about it today) some time ago.
But it wasn’t enough.
Interviewers look for something more, deeper, and meaningful.
Candidates limit themselves to what’s on paper. If they diverge, it could mean charting in to unknown territory. But that’s precisely what good interviewers try to do – derail and distract to see if a candidate can maintain composure.
Sneaky. But effective.
We found candidates get rejected because they relied too much on their resume and couldn’t answer questions accurately (they were probably half-truths on paper). Sometimes you swing and miss.
Resumes can be fabricated.
There are probably hundreds (or thousands) of fabricated resumes on online job boards. But this surely exist only within the lower ranks of job-seekers right?
No.
CEOs from RadioShack, Yahoo!, Bausch & Lomb, to name a few were all caught with their resume lies. It is more widespread than you would think. We just don’t hear about it as often unless its a big-shot that gets in trouble.
But that’s exactly what some applicants are doing with their resume. They’re putting on paper the “person” they want to be perceived as with claims like “I increased revenue by 80% YoY during my first 6 months.”
If you are reviewing stacks of resumes, you may experience what I call Qualification-Blindness Syndrome – yea I just coined that.
You look for impressive results and accomplishments. And the shiniest resume will past with flying colors.
Resumes don’t reveal your passion.
Most people have a job (unless you are retired, of course). And I’m willing to bet that most are decent at what they do, few are great at what they do, and fewer have total command of their skill set. That’s life.
But what are these people excited about. If you were without a job, is there anything that you still wake up for?
For your resume to come to life, you need to humanize it, and it can be done by expressing your passion beyond work.
It is impossible to tell if your top candidate has anything that excites and inspires him/her outside of work.
This is important. Creativity is borne out of passion and inspiration. You don’t want to hire a robot with no desire to thrive beyond the 9-to-5 hours.
Resumes Under Renovation…
Here’s an example of how “successes” can be modified in resumes to paint a brighter picture:
Bullet points that look like this: (This candidate is unlikely to past the sniff test)
- I worked on the team that increased customer conversion rate by 6%
- Collaborated with product managers to improve promotional bundles
- Partnered with CFO to reduce CAC by optimizing ad spend margins
Can be altered to read like this:
- Tested and improved conversion rate by 6%
- Owned and launched new promotional bundles
- Reduced CAC by 30% optimizing ad spend margins
Now this candidate has suddenly risen to the top of consideration pile.
But We Cannot Ignore Resumes
You are absolutely right!
We need to glance over resumes to get an idea if the candidate is someone to consider for a phone or video screen.
So here are 3 questions I like to ask in the first 5 minutes. It helps me determine if the candidate is a cultural fit and set the tone for rest of the interview.
Question 1: Beyond this resume, what is the one thing you are passionate about?
You would be shocked by how many blank stares I get from this question. The most common answer I hear is “Well, I am very passionate about marketing and learning new things every day.”
I expect applicants to be passionate about their future job – that’s a given. It’s an expectation. It’s a no-brainer.
The reason for this question is to find out if there are things the candidate is motivated and driven by. At FMD, we look for culture fit, then figure out if we can train you to level up.
Passion cannot be taught.
This question goes BEYOND a resume. It goes deep into your soul and forces you to give an honest answer.
Why?
You cannot fake passion when you are describing it to an audience.
Question 2: Have you failed and who’s fault was it?
This sounds like an attempt to point fingers. It really is not.
The goal of this question is to find out if the interviewee is accountable.
Common responses I get sound like this:
“Well, I have not personally failed, but I can recall a time when the engineering team could not deliver my requests….”
Or
“I can’t give you a specific situation, but there was a time…”
and, and, and…
Your future employer is not looking for perfect hires, someone who has not failed.
When was the last time you saw anyone post how they failed on LinkedIn profiles?
Accountability gets your hired.
Question 3: You’re skills look great on paper. But what is your weakest area?
I recall being asked this several times during interviews in my career. Due to lack of experience and maturity, I boldly said “I don’t have one.”
But the second after I said that my heart sank into my stomach.
Why?
It’s simply untrue! My natural instinct was not to appear weak.
Now that I am responsible of the growth of FMD, I ask this same question to all applicants.
Everyone has an area of weakness, no one can claim superpowers. Even the greats of our time like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos has weakness, in theory.
If a your candidate is unable to admit past mistakes to you, do you expect any different if the hire is made?
Transparency is key. If your potential employee has a difficult time being transparent during the interview…do you really expect that after you hire?
Summing Up
Resumes is a right of passage. The need for a polished resume is indoctrinated the minute you start high-school through college. Whether you are hiring for the first time, or a seasoned hiring manager, keep these questions in mind.
Or come up with your own questions that can help you understand who that person across the table really is. Ask Beyond The Resume.
