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According to Resume.io, job hunters usually submit between 100 and 200 applications before finally landing a job. As a result, job seekers have to cast a wide net, sometimes applying for every job related to their field of expertise. For talent acquisition professionals, that can translate to an abundance of resumes to peruse.
In fact, more than 100 candidates apply to each job listing. For some categories, like corporate jobs, that number jumps to an average of 250 resumes per job listing. With the 250 applicants, four to six are afforded an interview — and only one gets the job. And a recruiter, HR rep, or CEO has to figure out how to go through those applications and find the cream of the crop.
While it’s a recruiter’s dream to get a lot of stellar applicants, it can quickly turn into a nightmare to have to sort through a deluge of applications.
“When encountering a surplus of applications, it can initially feel overwhelming. For this reason, it is best to develop lists of inclusion and exclusion criteria for applicants before starting the search process,” explains Joel Frank, PsyD, Clinical Psychologist and Neuropsychologist, Owner of Duality Psychological Services.
“As an organization, it is important for the employer and recruiter to have a clear understanding of the ideal applicant profile and a firm understanding of the negotiable and non-negotiable qualifications and attitudes,” Dr. Frank adds.
But how do you do that? How do you start the process to give you the most efficient and successful ending? And if you still get that influx of applications, what do you do then?
We take a look at ways to handle applicant overload for a job listing, ways to try to head off getting applicants that aren’t a fit and things that you can do to make the hiring process easier for you.
How Many Resumes Do You Need?
It goes without saying that a recruiter wants more than one job candidate to choose from. But there is no magic number to say how much more than one will work for you. It can be a largely personal decision. It can also depend on if you’re looking for a few resumes to fill other potential positions down the road.
“Quality obviously matters over quantity— a few great applications might outperform hundreds of mediocre [ones and be a better fit] for the position. In general, however, I recommend holding interviews with the top five to ten candidates that apply,” states Parker Gilbert, CEO and Co-Founder of Numeric. “To adequately source that volume, our team aims for a coverage ratio of eight reasonably qualified applicants … per candidate interviewed. This amounts to a pool of 40-80 applicants per role.”
And that’s still plenty to keep a hiring manager busy. Research says recruiters spend an average of 6 to 8 seconds looking at a resume before deciding whether to move forward with the candidate. So if that’s all the time you have to make a decision, a large volume of CVs to look through doesn’t help the process.
You need steps to cut down on the workload, avoid time wasters and get the top talent that you’re looking for.
Hints and Tricks to Sort Through an Onslaught of Resumes
If you’re staring at an inbox full of resumes, are overwhelmed, and unsure where to start, here are a few tips to help you make it through the process.
1. Ask all the applicants to do a skills assessment
Create an assessment that can be easily reviewed, so it’s not adding to the mounting workload that you already have. Then put parameters in place that the applicant must achieve. When you get those assessment scores, that information will help you significantly narrow down the number of qualified applicants.
2. Add supplemental questions to the process
A few well-phrased questions designed to get specific responses can be very beneficial in figuring out the best candidates for the job. If a job seeker does not provide what’s needed, you can eliminate their resume.
3. Use what’s at your disposal
Job sites offer tricks to make the process easier for you. “Typically, high volumes of applicants come over via LinkedIn or similar job posting sites. I’ll download the applicants from LinkedIn into a csv file and screen through key elements like location and current title to weed out immediately unqualified candidates,” notes Gilbert. Looking at their LinkedIn profiles after this process helps further scale down potential hires.
4. Filter out incomplete applications
That can take some of the guesswork out of deciding whether someone fits the bill or not.
5. Look for keywords in a resume
If you are looking for someone with specific experience, a quick search of keywords in their resume will tell you if the prior experience is there. There can be a drawback to this method, however. A person may not have the experience you are looking for, but their transferable skills could make up for the perceived void. “Certainly scan [resumes] for entirely irrelevant experience and seek out skill/role fit, but pay attention to where skills have carryover power when the person has gone above and beyond in the interview process, and has put in work to elevate how their prior positions have prepared them for the current role,” Gilbert advises.
6. Look out for red flag keywords in resumes
This option can be tricky. The words you filter out may translate to a red flag in your industry, but not for someone else. Finding the right technology tools for every stage of hiring can help streamline the process. “When a deluge of applicants happens, HR teams employ recruiting software that sorts candidates and leaves only those applications that fit the requirements best. Then, given the outcome, HR teams manually go through applications to decide which individuals shall be invited to a job interview,” states Armine Pogosyan, IT HR Director at Dyninno Group.
Even with all of these steps you can take, one of the biggest tips is to go back to the beginning of the process. That can be the ultimate step to eliminating applicant overload.
“If a job posting gets too many applications, my first instinct would be to go back to the posting and find out how can we improve the language to help weed out those who may not be [the best fit] and encourage those with ideal backgrounds to apply. We need to go from casting a very wide net into a smaller one to make sure we don’t get overwhelmed and potentially miss out on a potential rockstar,” advises Kolby Goodman, Candidate Experience and Hiring Consultant at kolbygoodman.com.
“Sadly, I have seen other recruiters who have get hundreds if not thousands of applications and tend to just sort by whoever was first to keep it simple and straightforward This does not mean they’re getting the best of the best just those who are lucky enough spot the posting before anybody else,” Goodman concludes.
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