31 Jul 2023
If you’re looking for staff, and all you have to go on is a bunch of CV’s, how do you know which one(s) to select for an interview?
Firstly – the basics
You need someone who can do the job – and by that we mean someone who can fulfil the basics of the job description. That should be easy to work out from their CV at least – so long as the evidence is there.
Secondly – define whether the job description is all you want them to fulfil, or are you looking for something over and above that? Do you want someone in the job who’ll do well, but then want to move onwards and upwards leaving another gap to fill? Or do you want a constant high performer who is happy to do what they need to do, every day, and do it well?
Think carefully:
Many recruiters simply need someone who can learn the role (or hit the ground running) and nothing else – someone who is highly capable of doing what they need to do, is consistent, meticulous, and conscientious.
If this is who you want, then make sure you find the CVs that reflect this. These CVs will typically focus on excellent performance, achieving targets, delivering the goods, and quality.
But many others want someone who can come in, learn / do the job, but also grow, develop, enhance the business, make progress and advance through the organisation.
And if this is who you want, look out for the CVs where you’ll see ‘devised new procedures’,’ deputised for managers’, ‘proposed new ways of working’ and ‘promoted to / progressed to’. People who want to develop their career, have ambition and are keen to move up the ladder will reflect this in their CV.
It’s easy to see how recruiters can select the latter over the former every time, without realising what they are doing. They’ll pick the ambitious over the steady every time, and don’t realise, until it’s too late, that it was steady they needed to keep the continuity in their business.
This can also lead to a higher turnover of staff as the ambitious will often leave when they realise that there isn’t the level of career progression at your organisation that they had hoped to see and they see an opportunity elsewhere that will suit them better.
It would seem much preferable to have selected the dependable and meticulous workers who would do a good job and do it for a longer period of time without looking to constantly move onwards and upwards to their next destination. There is a worth in being conscientious and constant that is sometimes only recognised in its absence.
Recruiters should reflect on this and decide whether the rising stars are worth the time, cost and effort that it takes to keep replacing them or whether they would prefer the stability offered by the steady workers who will do the job well.
