Résuméfit LLC / Right Fit. Right Hire.

Resume Content / Trustworthiness

Employer / recruiter review of resume content and its validity coefficient (trustworthiness) is influenced by its location in the candidate selection funnel.  The funnel is wide at the top where all candidates enter and narrow at the bottom where the fewer short-listed candidates are identified.  You would like all resume data to be perfectly trustworthy in all areas of the funnel, but that's just not practical.  An employer likely does not have sufficient resources to assiduously scrutinize everyone who submits their resume.

Therefore, at the top of the funnel employers triage resumes with (1)  a manual "stare and compare" to quickly determine whether to put the resume into the yes, no, or maybe piles or (2) with a software application using artificial intelligence and fuzzy logic that scans and parses resume data into a database for subsequent semantic analysis and keyword searching.

All searches at the top of the funnel are subject to the garbage in - garbage out principle.  Many suggest that it goes much deeper.

Résuméfit’s Integrated Evidentiary Résumé System™ is targeted at improving candidate representation and subsequent candidate selection by improving the quality of resume content going into the top of the funnel.  We’ll note right up front that although assessment instruments are an element of our comprehensive resume system, employers should continue to use assessment organizations to assess short-listed candidates against a well developed job specification inventory.

Selecting content that would improve today's standard-traditional resume is not terribly difficult.  The difficult task is how to deliver it so that it integrates as seamlessly as possible into all the hiring management processes that presently exist at employers (all sizes), recruiting agencies, applicant tracking system vendors, job boards, et al.  Most everyone accepts resumes / CVs in MS Word.  Therefore, our Dig-Sig IERS™ is also an MS Word document.

But how do you deliver to the candidate their resume in MS Word that contains some scientifically based information, which they can not edit / alter?  Conversely, how does the reviewer quickly and accurately determine whether the validated, scientific information, submitted by the candidate in their "next gen" resume, has not been tampered with?

Our answer is to digitally sign each Dig-Sig IERS™ with an organizational signature provided by VeriSign.  If Résuméfit’s class 3 code signing certificate is on the document, you can trust that the scientifically based information has not been altered.

We'll note that digitally signing a PDF document would have been easier to implement, and the PDF digital signature is also more robust.  However, there are very few resumes in PDF compared to those that are in MS Word.  There are many career portals that do not handle uploads of PDF documents.   In our opinion integration is key to having a chance at making resume improvements.  No special hardware or software is necessary to open and read a digitally signed MS Word document other than MS Word 2002 or later version.

Note: Many job boards and employment portals perfectly handle a digitally signed MS Word document.  Job boards and career portals that provide only a copy and paste function (digital signature is destroyed when copied) can retrieve the candidate's original Dig-Sig IERS™ from our website.

We anticipate that there will be as many questions and comments regarding digital signature technology as there will be questions and comments regarding the two assessments we use.  We invite intellectual discussion of both topics.

A digital signature tutorial can be reviewed at the American Bar Association website, http://www.abanet.org/scitech/ec/isc/dsg-tutorial.html

Introductory Post

Welcome.

Our three blogging goals are (1) to be concise and precise, and we'll do our best not to address comments with surface level answers or  symbolism without substance.  Therefore, posting responses to comments may not be immediate as certain responses may require some thought due to the fact that many problems are multi-dimensional.

(2) We'd like to think that we can offer some fresh insight into what the "next gen" resume could be, and the effects it could bring to all HCM constituencies that handle resumes or CVs.  Although we don't espouse extreme views, we anticipate that some will consider our ideas to be "outside-the-box."

Please note that many subject matter experts have previously written and /or spoken about the issues with resumes, position descriptions, candidate selection techniques, etc.  Much of their observations and thinking have been excerpted along the way.  We take no credit in discovering anything about the problem, but we've tried to be forthright in appraising the problem and state it free from ambiguity or evasiveness.

(3) Where possible we will provide links to websites with supporting material to reinforce the posting's content, validate it, or provide opposing viewpoints.

It will never be Résuméfit’s intention to disparage any vendor's products or services. Every day people  find jobs, submit their resume, go on interviews, and receive offer letters, but most everyone knows of some problems.  We're simply trying to represent candidates in the most complete and scientific way possible, and to provide hiring managers the ability to reach more informed candidate selection decisions.

Respectfully,  ...Tom Schmidt