Find the Perfect Fit: How Effective CV Screening Can Transform Your Recruitment

You know everyone’s time is expensive, whether it’s a recruiter or hiring manager. To avoid wasting time interviewing unsuitable candidates, consider CVs carefully and invite only those who meet your requirements. So, I’ll discuss CV screening, how you can adequately evaluate CVs, what parameters you should pay attention to, and something like that. 

What is CV screening?

CV screening is an early and rapid evaluation of a candidate’s resume based on critical criteria such as experience, education, and technology stack requirements. A recruiter, source, or researcher typically conducts screening. The result of the selection is a list of candidates who will proceed to the next level. Those who are unsuitable for any reason will be added to the reserve pool.

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Preliminary Stages of CV Screening 

Screening of CVs is preceded by three preparatory stages: research, withdrawal of application, and draft job text.

Research work: Before talking to a client and clarifying candidate requirements, you should conduct your research and understand the characteristics of the position and the vacancy. 

Cancel application: The recruiter needs to understand the hiring manager’s needs. In other words, what kind of specialist do you need, and what do you look for in an interview? I recommend separating customer requirements into “must-have” and “nice-to-have.” Often, customers want to find “unicorns” that don’t exist in the market.

Write job text: At this stage, it is essential to describe the position accurately and get confirmation from the recruiter that the requirements and working conditions have been formulated correctly. The selection process may only be completed if you agree with the client on the job description.

Also Read: What are Employee Spotlights? Rewarding Employee and Its Benefits

Criteria for CV screening

Experience 

When assessing professional experience, it is essential to consider how long a person has worked in each position. A “candidate” who changes companies frequently and never stays anywhere arouses suspicion: The person may prove controversial or unqualified. Stack is rarely considered when hiring an executive CTO. The candidate’s work experience is much more important here:

• Industries and companies in which he worked;
• The stage of the company’s life cycle at which it was at the time of the candidate’s employment;
• The tasks that the candidate solved;
• Digitized work results;
• Standards and approaches;
• People management skills.

Hard and Soft Skills 

During selection, recruiters can only assess formal compliance with hard skills such as experience with the technology stack or knowledge of foreign languages. He operates on the principle that “the candidate probably knows what they put on their resume and can do it.” 

Soft skills such as customer orientation, consideration, and conflict-free behavior can also be developed to assess the interview stage fully. Recruiters typically present a long list of requirements for candidates for IT positions. 

Recruiters then look at each candidate’s CV and look for the names of significant major technologies or their synonyms in the text. The recruiter will close your CV and continue searching if the required technology is not elsewhere. Training Recruiters can also set requirements for future employees’ training areas during recruitment and target graduates of specific universities. Next, the hiring manager must review the CVs based on education information. At the same time, the HR manager’s requirements must be critically considered, and the manager should sometimes follow them unthinkingly.

Additional Information 

Developer resumes are typically read from bottom to top. The first thing you need to do is check the “About Me” field. From this section, people think it’s important to talk about themselves. What is the candidate’s motivation? Is he looking for a job? People usually indicate how ready they are for new offers in this block. The procedure for filling in the “Self-introduction” column will be evaluated differently depending on the vacant position. Candidates for such leadership positions are worth keeping an eye on. It is essential to know what metrics the candidate achieved in their previous jobs and what companies they worked for.

CV Format 

You should evaluate the design and content of your resume based on the position for which you are seeking the candidate. When choosing a developer, pay attention to whether the candidate’s resume on GitHub includes a portfolio of completed projects. Many developers make the mistake of specifying the stack but must discuss projects, tasks, teams, working with legacy code, or product development. For projects, products, and designers, you can expect detailed descriptions of their work history and projects on platforms like Miro, Notion, and Figma. A thorough analysis of such a portfolio is performed in the next selection step.

Cover Letter 

Job descriptions often ask candidates to apply with a cover letter. I propose to indicate the brightest and most memorable projects. Some professional failures, how to solve them, and the lessons learned. This lets you quickly weed out people who read the description carelessly and react to everything. At the same time, standard answers such as “Please consider my CV for this vacancy” are the same as not having a cover letter. Preference will be given to candidates who are comfortable talking about the most exciting stories, results, and achievements.

Literacy 

Only applications that are entirely illiterate should be rejected. For example, I came across a resume where a native speaker couldn’t spell his name correctly. Unless you’re an aspiring copywriter, philologist, or journalist, small mistakes and typos usually don’t matter.

Also Read: How To Answer ‘Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years?’

Common CV Screening Mistakes 

Ignore the screening stage and immediately invite candidates for an interview. 

This typically applies to human resources departments and agencies where recruiters plan the number of interviews. Interviewing professionals who may not be an excellent fit wastes time for you, the hiring manager, and the candidate.

Please take the time to review and thoroughly analyze your resume.

Screening is a simple process to weed out people you don’t want. If you understand that the candidate suits you, it is better to analyze the person’s profile on social networks and get recommendations after the interview. 

Find fault too much

This tactic doesn’t work, especially in a hot IT market. One day, I came across an utterly unattractive resume that had yet to be updated in a year and a half. However, the candidate needed more training. I contacted him, and he sent me his current resume. It turned out that he was a perfect fit for the team. This means this person has been with the company for about five years.

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Conclusion 

CV screening is an essential first step in the recruitment process that helps employers narrow down qualified candidates to a shortlist. By carefully evaluating factors such as experience, skills, and even cover letters, recruiters can efficiently identify the most promising candidates and save time interviewing candidates who need to meet their requirements. You can avoid that. Remember, a properly executed resume screening process will ensure a productive and efficient hiring experience, benefiting both employers and candidates.