How long does it take to screen resumes?
By Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter
Someone from a small company asked how long it would take to screen resumes because they thought too much money was being spent on external recruiters.
I’m Jeff Altman, Big Game Hunter. I’m the head coach at JobSearch.Community. Today’s question is, how long does it take to screen resumes? This comes from the perspective of employers using recruiters who find it costly to recruit good but not great candidates. As they write, for each position, we have three to five candidates who go to the hiring manager.
They’re looking at bringing the process in-house and using tools like ZipRecruiter and Workable, and they want to think. . . They are hiring for IT positions. How long does it take to narrow it down to the same three to five options? Now, the real problem I want to point out first is that most people underestimate what recruiters do because you see the results of their efforts. So, for example, you’re looking at three to five resumes and thinking to yourself, yeah, if I use these tools, I can get three to five resumes.
Any questions? The question starts with, okay, let’s see who’s going to screen the resumes that come in and conduct pre-interviews with them. Who will judge them? I know when I was recruiting, I would get hundreds of spam emails that were nothing but spam and, you know, some systems would have a data dictionary that would allow you to evaluate and get screens of the system, but, you know, sometimes those systems miss things. So, if you agree, let’s go ahead.
Let’s assume your system is being delivered. . . Let me use myself as an example. Likewise, on a Monday morning, I usually walk in at 200. . . Well, for me, I typically see 200 to 250 resumes and then have to start reading through them. In the three to five seconds typically used, you can perform mathematical calculations.
If I operate like a machine, you know, I can actually do this in five seconds, five seconds of which it opens the next one and deletes the previous one. You know, six, 250 resumes a minute. 6 into 240. It takes 40 minutes to finish.
But I was interrupted. I’m distracted. I’m not a machine.
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I am a person. Reading more is more boring than spam. You have to watch it for at least a few seconds to figure out what they are talking about before you delete it.
As I said in my early job search radio podcast, I think this is actually the first show, usually out of those 250 shows, do you know how many shows I end up interviewing for? The answer is two. 250/2. So, here’s just you doing the math.
If you were put into a situation where you had to receive 250 resumes and two of them were qualified, it would probably take about two hours of work. Now, I have to tell you, some days go by and I don’t see two resumes worth following up on. It’s scary, but it’s true.
As a result, it can take days to find the three to five people you actually want to interview. That’s before you start the actual pre-interview process before you decide to forward the person to the hiring manager. Now, it’s a focused effort.
Chances are, in a company like the one described here, you won’t have the dedicated resources to do this. This will assist them in their work. Because if you had dedicated resources, you wouldn’t be asking this question.
You already know this person will pre-screen you. You won’t use an outside recruiter. So, my guess is, this is a small company.
It’s an added feature to someone’s day. This will take more time than you think. If you agree, fine.
But that’s what you pay an outside recruiter to do, is to sift through it and get it down to three to five. I would say, easily, easily, it might take a week to a week and a half to get three to five, and the person is doing other things as well. So, you know, I’m just simply saying, if it’s worth it to you, if the time spent might end up being pointless because the person they identified might not be a good fit either, then go ahead and bring it in-house and do it.
But if you’re not sure, I’d just say, if you want to cut costs and spend less on recruiting, lower it by two points. So if you pay 25%, raise it to 23%. If you pay 20%, raise it to 18%.
Simply put, I want to continue to give you exclusive coverage, but we are evaluating internal resources. I want to consider you because you help us a lot. This might be one way we can solve this problem.
Have a nice day. Job hunting. Community. I can’t believe this spammer. Phone spam.
Phone spam. Have a nice day.
Recruiters know something you don’t: They’re not watching all those screening videos
About Big Game Hunter Jeff Altman
People hire “Big Game Hunter” Jeff Altman to provide no-nonsense job coaching and career advice around the world because he excels at job hunting And get ahead in your career more easily.
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He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 job search podcast on iTunes with over 2,900 episodes in over 13 years.
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