You have two recent graduate candidates:
Candidate A) has a degree in right industry. She worked her way through college, has volunteer experience, a 3.93 GPA from an Ivy League university, and has 1 minor typo on her resume that would not have been caught by spell check.
Candidate B). has a degree in the right industry, she worked her way through college, has volunteer experience, her GPA is in the toilet, and she almost flunked out of a “lesser” college twice. She has no typos on her resume.
Who do you hire?
Really this is a trick question, because you can’t make a hiring decision based on what I just told you. You need to “interview” them both first. And, as it turns out, both women were hired and are stellar employees. Does this surprise you?
Candidate B has ADHD, and school was really hard for her. She clawed her way through college one day at a time. She had professors who worked with her and advocated for her, and she passed with not so flying colors. She is one of the all-time favorites at her job.
Here is the bottom line: you can’t tell a good candidate by reading their resume. NO ONE can. A resume is a “Marketing” piece by the candidate, full of exaggerations and sometimes outright lies. They are designed to get through AI, applicant tracking systems and websites. They are NOT designed to help you choose who is the right fit for your role and who isn’t. The only way that you can tell who is qualified and who isn’t is to conduct an interview with that person.
So, how do you read a resume? Use it for information on how to contact a candidate and then call them for an interview. That’s it.
POWER THOGUHT: How do you read a resume? With an open mind and a solid interview process.