Our Business Minds: Submitting Candidates: How to stand out from the crowd

A pyramidal orchid stands out because of its beauty, colour.

Submitting Candidates: How to stand out from the crowd

John Adams

CEO at Adams Staffing

You've just spoke to a candidate that looks extremely promising and now you want to submit the person to your client for the consideration of an interview; Now what do you do?

Well, let’s take it back a step and ask a few questions:

Did you make a personal assessment for all of the basic requirements, skills and job expectations, reinforcing your assessment with examples of the candidate's job-related experiences?

Do you know what your candidate's best work accomplishments are?

Did you ask the candidate to update their resume adding emphasis to their job-related experiences relevant to the position upon which they are being submitted for?

Coming from a company where my boss submitted clients using a few bullets summarizing their resume, I had to throw away all that I was taught and reformulate the entire process if I wanted to stand out from the crowd. I wanted to gain a level of professionalism and respect from my clients that would have nothing to do with a submittal of bullet points outlining their resume. There's a stark difference between having knowledge of skills and techniques and having experience in the application of those skills and techniques. You are going to want the hiring manager to know that you have done a thorough interview of every candidate that you submit.

I am lucky enough that my brother and mother-in-law are corporate level hiring managers for a healthcare and telecommunications company with hundreds of people working under their supervision at any given time. I suggest you take advantage of any similar resources that you might have. It helps to ask someone on the opposite side of the spectrum questions about how your competition is doing things. Here are the questions that I asked:

How are your recruiters submitting candidates to you?

Are they sending sloppy, unedited resumes or are they providing clean resumes that look professional?

Are they providing their additional summaries and assessments of their interview?

What are your do's and don'ts in regards to sending over resumes?

What is the most important information that your bosses are looking for?

Here's what I found:

Most recruiters are just sending over lightly edited resumes they take straight from Monster and CareerBuilder with a sentence or two just stating the position for which they are submitting the candidate and how much money the candidate is looking to make. There is no additional summary or assessment for the hiring manager to use for reference. Most hiring managers will overlook a resume if there are errors, mistakes or doesn't look professional. Lastly, the most emphasis that hiring managers and their bosses are putting on consideration for interviewing or hiring a candidate is whether or not the candidate has real-life application of the job skills and requirements from their prior working experience.

Here's what I did:

I put together a screening assessment ranking the candidate (on a 5-point scale from poor to excellent) in 8 categories:

Meets job description

Ability to function as key point of contact

Ability to work independently

Motivational team player with project management skills

Ability to solve problems using knowledge from education and work experience

Right career move for the candidate

Optimism in regards to the opportunity to work with client

Overall social and cultural fit for the client

Next to each ranking I explain the reasoning behind the ranking I gave the candidate using only examples of real work experiences I ascertained through my personal interview questions. After the interview I send the candidate a template for them to fill out listing their two greatest work accomplishments. I then have them send this document back to me with their updated resume. After review of the resume, work accomplishments and screening assessment, I put together my cover letter for the hiring manager. The cover letter is a two paragraph summary of why I consider the candidate an excellent fit for the position and why they deserve the desired salary they are looking to make. Finally, I send the cover letter over with the work accomplishments, updated resume and screening assessment.

A submittal of this depth will do a number of things for both you and your business. You will build your reputation and brand as a professional. Hiring managers will have faith that you only submit strong candidates. You will reduce your sendout-per-placement ratio and you will see an increase in your performance and income.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/submitting-candidates-how-stand-out-from-crowd-john-adams