Read Case Study 2 - Pros and Cons of Cleaning Up the Resu-mess Answer the following questions: 1. Why might organizations use resume- screening tools? 2. What impact do you think resume-screening tools are having on HR departments? What about line managers? 3. Do you think the use software to screen resumes is valid? Why or why not? 4. How might the drawbacks associated with resume-screening software be addressed? Case Study 2 PROS AND CONS OF CLEANING thousand online assessments, with prices rang- UP THE "RSU-MESS" ing from a couple of bucks to $50 a test. Many Electronic job-application submission systems well and have algorithms to recommend candi job boards now feature prescreening questions as can leave HR and hiring managers drowning in a sea of rsums and applications. Some large mends products based on what a person has dates similar to the way Amazon.com recom- year. Even small businesses can find themselves purchased in the past. flooded with them. For example, one firm needed Not all HR professionals are fans of rsum to hire 35 people and received 10,000 rsums screening software, however. Managers tend and had to hire an outside firm to help sort to pile on huge numbers of key words so that through them. very few applicants can make it past the screen, It's not surprising that harried HR personnel, says Peter Cappelli, a University of Pennsylvania using application tracking systems and other Good People Can't Get Jobs. Different kinds of soft types of resum-screening software. Ayax Systems of them don't read serif-type styles such as Times ware also have different kinds of glitches. Many and Kenexa are two firms that offer close to a Roman well, and those rsums get rejected. Some systems ignore headers and footers. So if an applicant puts his or her contact information in the header, it may end up being deleted. In other cases, unqualified applicants have learned to "pepper their rsums with a job's key words to get past rsum-screening software. In an interview with The Wall Street Jour nal, Cappelli relates an incident in which an HR manager put his own rsum through his compa ny's screening process and got rejected. In another instance, an engineering firm received more than 25,000 rsums for a job, but none of the candi- dates made it past electronic screening. There is also a lack of the human touch and judgment in the process. Managers don't end up seeing interesting rsums-rsums from people who have different skills or life experiences that would translate well to the job. Consequently, a lot of people who would make excellent employees never get a glance. Some recruiters have found ways to avoid the rsu-mess and downsides of automatic rsum screening altogether. Instead of posting job ads, they use social networking sites to get the word out for the types of employees they are looking to hire. Kevin Mercuri, president of Propheta Communica- tions, a public relations firm, is one of them. Mercuri got tired of being swamped by rsums. Now when he needs to recruit personnel, he posts a message about job openings on his linkedin page. "I get people vouching for each applicant, so I don't have to spend hours sorting through rsums," he says. Questions 1. What impact do you think rsum screening tools are having on HR departments? What about line managers? Would you use the soft- ware to screen rsums? 2. How might the drawbacks associated with rsum-screening software be addressed? Case Study 2 PROS AND CONS OF CLEANING thousand online assessments, with prices rang- UP THE "RSU-MESS" ing from a couple of bucks to $50 a test. Many Electronic job application submission systems well and have algorithms to recommend candi job boards now feature prescreening questions as can leave HR and hiring managers drowning in a sea of resumes and applications. Some large mends products based on what a person has dates similar to the way Amazon.com recom- retailers can get a million or more rsums a year. Even small businesses can find themselves purchased in the past. Not all HR professionals are fans of rsum- flooded with them. For example, one firm needed screening software, however. Managers tend to hire 35 people and received 10,000 rsums to pile on huge numbers of key words so that and had to hire an outside firm to help sort very few applicants can make it past the screen, through them. It's not surprising that harried HR personnel, says Peter Cappelli, a University of Pennsylvania managers, and business owners are increasingly professor who has written a book called by Good People Can't Get Jobs. Different kinds of soft- using application-tracking systems and other types of rsum screening software. Ayax Systems of them don't read serif-type styles such as Times ware also have different kinds of glitches. Many and Kenexa are two firms that offer close to a Roman well, and those rsums get rejected. Some systems ignore headers and footers. So if an applicant puts his or her contact information in the header, it may end up being deleted. In other cases, unqualified applicants have learned to "pepper" their rsums with a job's key words to get past rsum-screening software. In an interview with The Wall Street Jour nal, Cappelli relates an incident in which an HR manager put his own rsum through his compa ny's screening process and got rejected. In another instance, an engineering firm received more than 25,000 rsums for a job, but none of the candi- dates made it past electronic screening There is also a lack of the human touch and judgment in the process Managers don't end up seeing interesting rsums-rsums from people who have different skills or life experiences that would translate well to the job. Consequently, a lot of people who would make excellent employees never get a glance. Some recruiters have found ways to avoid the rsu-mess and downsides of automatic rsum screening altogether. Instead of posting job ads, they use social networking sites to get the word out for the types of employees they are looking to hire. Kevin Mercuri, president of Propheta Communica- tions, a public relations firm, is one of them. Mercuri got tired of being swamped by rsums. Now when he needs to recruit personnel, he posts a message about job openings on his LinkedIn page. "I get people vouching for each applicant, so I don't have to spend hours sorting through rsums," he says. Questions 1. What impact do you think rsum-screening tools are having on HR departments? What about line managers? Would you use the soft- ware to screen rsums? 2. How might the drawbacks associated with rsume screening software be addressed? Case Study 2 PROS AND CONS OF CLEANING thousand online assessments, with prices rang- UP THE "RSU-MESS" ing from a couple of bucks to $50 a test. Many Electronic job-application submission systems job boards now feature prescreening questions as can leave HR and hiring managers drowning in well and have algorithms to recommend candi- a sea of rsums and applications. Some large mends products based on what a person has dates similar to the way Amazon.com recom- retailers can get a million or more rsums a year. Even small businesses can find themselves purchased in the past. Not all HR professionals are fans of rsum- flooded with them. For example, one firm needed to hire 35 people and received 10,000 rsums screening software, however. Managers tend and had to hire an outside firm to help sort to pile on huge numbers of key words so that through them. very few applicants can make it past the screen, It's not surprising that harried HR personnel, professor who has written a book called Why says Peter Cappelli, a University of Pennsylvania managers, and business owners are increasingly Good People Can't Get Jobs. Different kinds of soft- using application-tracking systems and other types of rsum-screening software. Ayax Systems of them don't read serif-type styles such as Times ware also have different kinds of glitches. Many and Kenexa are two firms that offer close to a NEL Roman well, and those rsums get rejected. Some systems ignore headers and footers. So if an applicant puts his or her contact information in the header, it may end up being deleted. In other cases, unqualified applicants have learned to "pepper" their rsums with a job's key words to get past rsum-screening software. In an interview with The Wall Street Jour- nal, Cappelli relates an incident in which an HR manager put his own rsum through his compa- ny's screening process and got rejected. In another instance, an engineering firm received more than 25,000 rsums for a job, but none of the candi- dates made it past electronic screening. There is also a lack of the human touch and judgment in the process Managers don't end up seeing interesting rsums-rsums from people who have different skills or life experiences that would translate well to the job. Consequently, a lot of people who would make excellent employees never get a glance. Some recruiters have found ways to avoid the "rsu-mess" and downsides of automatic rsum screening altogether. Instead of posting job ads, they use social networking sites to get the word out for the types of employees they are looking to hire. Kevin Mercuri, president of Propheta Communica- tions, a public relations firm, is one of them. Mercuri got tired of being swamped by rsums. Now when he needs to recruit personnel, he posts a message about job openings on his LinkedIn page. "I get people vouching for each applicant, so I don't have to spend hours sorting through rsums," he says. Questions 1. What impact do you think rsum-screening tools are having on HR departments? What about line managers? Would you use the soft- ware to screen rsums? 2. How might the drawbacks associated with rsum-screening software be addressed? Sources: Dave Wessel, "Software Raises the Bar for Hiring." The Wall Street Journal (May 31, 2012), http://online.wsj.com; Darren Dahl, "Tapping the Talent Pool ... without Drowning in Resums," Inc. 31, no. 3 (April 2009): 122; Anne Kadet, "Did You Get My rsum?" Smart Money (February 27, 2009), http://www.smartmoney.com; Drew Robb, "Screening for Speedier Selection," HR Magazine 49, no. 9 (September 2004): 143-147