Hire People Not Resumes

I don’t put too much stock in resumes. Sure, they can tell a story, but not nearly the whole story.

I remember sitting in Mr. Bonner’s 9th grade biology class. Up until that point, I couldn’t care less about school. I watched the clock just waiting to get out of there as fast as I could so I could go play football in the park with my friends.

I was smart, smart enough that I could get straight C’s without even trying. Literally, I didn’t try at all. So if you looked at my report card (my resume), you wouldn’t consider me, I wouldn’t stand out and you would pass me right over without a thought.

But Mr. Bonner’s class was different. It wasn’t because I liked biology, I didn’t even know what biology was. It was him. He was a great teacher and effective communicator. He looked “beyond the resume” and he found ME, and he engaged me. Biology became fun and Mr. Bonner was the one to make it interesting for me.

He opened up a whole new world to me. That class became an easy A on my resume.

Don’t Hire Resumes, Hire People

So when I hire people, I always remember that lesson. Sure, you bet I’d consider their resume, but I always looked deeper. I’d look for some sort of spark in their eyes that I could find and work with.

If a candidate had a history of “job hopping”, I’d take note, I’d ask about it, but I always figured in their life they never had a Mr. Bonner as their manager. I would become their Mr. Bonner, and they would find their footing and way forward.

And why would I do that for them?

Because, whether it is in school or business, that kind of mentorship is the difference between production and failure in most students and employees. It is a great investment that is rewarded over time.

Looking back, many of my top performers were nearly always people who had spotty resumes without a clear history of demonstrated success. But, I saw something in them that I could work with and they generally responded to me “finding them” and betting on them! I don’t know, perhaps that just became “my cause”, and I just made it work for me.

Nevertheless, good hiring requires leadership in the upper ranks to reach down into the entry levels to personalize a new employee’s success and make it their responsibility.