Whether it's an applicant in your ATS, a referral, or a sourced candidate, you're going to have to take a look at the resume to proceed. When I started recruiting, I asked a lot of questions about the best way to go about this. There are a lot of factors, but let's keep this instructional post simple. How about a recipe comparison? Everyone likes to eat, right?
The Chef
The chef is the hiring manager in this case. A conversation validating the intent for the meal or the target cadidate is important. Is the job description true to form, do alterations need to be made? Are there any favorite recipes or benchmark candidates? Talk through the resume of that candidate about what was favorable - past companies, job titles, specific duties, eduction, etc. On the ocassion that the chef is not available to chat, you should break down the job details (recipe) as you have been given.
Ingredients
The minimum requirements for the job description are the ingredients.
First and foremost, does your candidate have the education, years of experience, technical tools/requirements? It's the easiest knock-out when there aren't any eggs in the fridge. If my client has a strict policy on the degree, my eyes go straight to eduction on the resume.
Directions
The job description/duties are the directions. The way it's worded in the recipe could be different than you're used to doing. Do you whisk or whip, do you bother to use a sifter? A candidate may not describe their tasks and responsibilties in the same manner that the job description points toward. Not everyone is up on the SEO of their cv, hah, while some are over-the-top on listing keywords. So this is the hard part of resume review. Is it close enough? If you spend too much time reading into this, you could have found another qualified candidate, right? Try to pin down those keywords. Hilighers on-guard. A recruiter who doesn't know about the find function (Ctrl+f), blasphemy! It will be your best friend. Anything to make those buzzwords pop. You might have to check other sites or cookbooks to understand a certain process (wikipedia, indeed, LinkedIn). And you'll learn from each new recipe/resume you see - more alternative meanings, associations, related job titles. Sometimes, the formatting is just a mess. If you're reviewing vitaes digitally, you might have the luxury to copy and paste to try to get a clearer vision of what it's portraying. If this is Grandma's chicken-scratch recipe, maybe not. You're motivation to "clean-up" will probably be dependent upon the job you're trying to fill/result you're trying to achieve.
Notes in the margin
All the little things we go through while resume rating. Second guessing, double checking. You've gone through your list of keywords, but you are feeling on the edge of qualifications. I've had that feeling and moved forward with a candidate who was ultimately hired. Granted, this was a lower level position. Most times, if I'm second-guessing so much I'm sure the hiring manager would too. Quality takes precident of quantity otherwise managers would just be interviewing everyone.
Tasting the food
The next step is to contact and screen that candidate. But this post is about resume reviewing, so we'll save that for later.
I've realized this has been a tough analogy since a recipe is one document and I'm relating it to two documents - a resume and a job description. So, there's a lot up in the air. Unlike this culinary confusion, rating a resume has to be a yes or no question. Just like when choosing the best cookie recipe for your party, you should go with your gut! Try a scale of 1-10 and if you can rate the candidate higher than 5 you move forward, less, you don't - like reading the reviews in a recipe. If they meet the minimum relquirements but the experience just isn't quite aligned, will they be best person for this job? In the end it's all about best match for the candidate and the client. A perfect pallette.
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