Promote your Best Worker Bees without Disturbing the Whole Hive

Even before you finish posting your most recent job opening, resumes start pouring in. Eager candidates are ready to do whatever it is your organization needs done.

Unfortunately eagerness alone doesn’t fit the bill—candidates need the right combination of skills and experience too.

Keeping a few things in mind when screening that burgeoning stack can keep it from becoming a people-eating monolithic pile of epic proportions. These four tips will help.

1. Know exactly what criteria you’re reading through resumes for. Even if you have more than one opening at your agency, it’s important that you become familiar with the position description and what your hiring managers are looking for in each position.
2. Create a consistent evaluation process, and always stick to it. Whether you decide to create an Excel spreadsheet that lists every resume alphabetically, or organize resumes into folders of “yes,” “no,” and “maybe,” based on how they meet criteria, it’s important that you follow the same process every time. And although it may sound trivial, keeping your resume screening process consistent can help you breeze through the process, gracefully decline those who applied and aren’t qualified, and get to the next step.
3. Do a quick sort. Your first run through a resume pile shouldn’t have you hiring private investigators or even Googling a candidate’s name. As you read through resumes the first time, keep in mind what’s most important to the hiring manager and in the posted job description. If a candidate makes it past this stage then conduct a more in-depth review of their resume, check out their online presence, and schedule a phone screening.
4. Don’t forget that somewhere in one of these piles is your next great employee. As time-consuming as resume screening can be, somewhere in one of those piles is your organization’s next hire. All of your hard work will pay off when they bring in new donors, strengthen community relations, or streamline your most antiquated process.

How do you make sure that reading resumes doesn’t put a damper on your day? Tell us on Facebook!