Relying on Resumes: Sucker’s Play

photo by skipgo shannon

An amazing article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription req.) today profiled a Frenchman who’d managed to con his way into a tryout for an elite European ‘football’ club.

The brief summary is that he doctored his resume to show the he’d…”been climbing the ranks of European soccer, signing with a top-flight Paris club and training with a team in Argentina. He had an agent and a Web site that showed him scoring a goal for the English club Swindon Town. He’d even been chosen as an ambassador for Lance Armstrong’s charity.”

The problem was that none of it was true.

His reaction?  “If I lied a little bit on my CV, I am sorry…I am just like 99% of my friends in France, who say on their résumé they can speak fluent English.”

It’s amazing that we’re surprised when this happens.  We put a lot of stock into the resume and the supposed skills and accomplishments one brings.

The stats say that almost half the resumes floating around out there contain false information (actually 42.7% via ResumeDoctor, March 2006).

So why do we keep putting so much faith in resumes?

Because it’s easy.

Resumes are shortcuts to get us what we’re looking for.  It’s safe to hire the person with fantastic accomplishments.  It’s safe to find the person who talks a great game and has the self-proclaimed history to back it up.  Pedigrees, experiences and stated feats are cues to us for an individual’s ability to perform in our work environments.

Granted, the resume is likely still the best thing we have going for us.  But it’s outdated.

Like stocks, past performance is no indicator of future performance.  Especially if that past performance is falsified.

The reason the past doesn’t work is because new variables are added to the mix.  Your business is a new environment.  There are new politics at play.  The dynamics between teams is different.  And the way things get done is vastly different.

So what to do?

Look for themes in the resume instead.

Does the individual create new products or modify existing ones?  Are they focused on working with teams or working in a silo?  Are the accomplishments they focus on team accomplishments or individual?  Answers either way are fine, it’s all a matter of what your own culture is.  What’s makes your successful people tick?  What does the role require?

Making Great Hires

Yesterday, RoundPegg hosted a 15-minute webinar on improving your hiring process in order to increase your odds of making a great hire.

RoundPegg’s Chief Psychologist, Dr. Natalie Baumgartner runs through the hiring landscape, the pitfalls most fall into, how to improve the process and finally, how RoundPegg can help.

Please check it out.  And if you’d like to learn more or have specific problems you’re struggling with please email us at: Natalie.Baumgartner@roundpegg.com.

Discovering Culture + Values

photo by: didbygraham

We recently uncovered an article on The Ladders about questions to ask to discover the culture of your prospective employer.  As they say, “company culture is everything. You can’t work where you don’t fit.”

Bravo.

Their questions are great for a prospective job seeker, but we want to offer up a few points on how to view this from the company’s point of view.  After all, culture is a two-way street.

Culture ultimately comes down to what is valued.  From a company’s point of view what is valued is what gets rewarded (not always, but it should be).

Every new person who walks through your doors will change the culture.  If it’s a new CEO, she’ll change it a lot.  If it’s a new marketing assistant then the sphere of influence will be much more limited.

So how do you identify what a prospective new hire values?

1. Ask about mentors. Have them describe a person they look to for mentorship (even informally).  What is it about the person they admire and try to emulate?  Get the candidate to list the six or seven attributes that person has that are worth emulating.
2. Rate themselves against their mentor. Then ask the candidate to rate themselves against their mentor on those six or seven attributes.
3. Utilize the resume. Believe it or not, resumes can be used for things other than skills and accomplishments.  Look for patterns in their work.  Did they constantly create something new, did they improve existing processes or do they talk about how they got more out of a team?
4. Ask them to talk through their obituary. Okay, maybe morbid (try retirement announcement if that’s less so) and maybe a little out of left field.  But the idea is to get them to think about the things of which they are most proud.  These will announce their values loud and clear.
5. Where and when were they most successful? At which job were they most successful?  Ask them to describe the environment.  What contributed to their success?  What were the people like around them?  What were their best traits?

At RoundPegg we’re objectively quantifying culture to provide a rigorous data point which you can use in the interview.  Please contact us if you’d like to find out more about using it in your interviewing process - info [at] roundpegg [dot] com.

What other techniques have worked well to identify what an individual values in the past?