Recruitment from the other side of the fence
August 5, 2010
I have previously written recruitment advice for candidates, in my new job – which is lovely and full of variety – I have been tasked with doing telephone interviews for contract SQL developers. This is fairly straightforward – I have their CVs which I review beforehand and I have a list of 15 technical questions which I use some of (but never all) during the course of the conversation.
Reviewing CVs is very interesting. I have my own views about how a CV should look. I prefer them to be very simple: laid out with no tables, no lines, no multi-column sections. I like only the use of bold for emphasis, no colour, and above all – not too much detail!
One CV I was reviewing recently was 12 pages long! I nearly choked. No one is ever going to read that much, it is simply boring. CVs also have limited utility – they are factual documents and give you an idea of what a candidate’s skill and experience is, but very little more. Even some of the ‘personal statement’-type sections can be a little sterile.
Obviously it’s a subjective thing, but I really like CVs in which there is some kind of evidence of personality. I look for touches of humour, or something about a candidate’s personal (non-work) interests that shows a bit of colour.
In terms of the telephone interviews themselves, I’m not a great fan of the phone at all in general, again, not being able to see a person’s face and how they react to things, makes the process of limited utility. But you can get an idea of a person’s communication skills, a bit of personality and use the technical questions as a filter.
It has certainly made me realise I’m selling myself far too cheaply!
October 6, 2010 at 8:57 am
“Obviously it’s a subjective thing, but I really like CVs in which there is some kind of evidence of personality. I look for touches of humour, or something about a candidate’s personal (non-work) interests that shows a bit of colour.”
I think you’re in the minority here. In my experience, the general consensus is to leave out any hobby/etc info out of the CV. Shame really, as surely the personality of a potential team member has to be up there in terms of importance