We’ve all done it before – go from job board to job board, dropping as many resumés as possible. When I was looking for my first job, easily dropping resumés through my career center seemed great as I felt like I was continuously creating opportunities for myself. The problem: 95% of the jobs I applied to never acknowledged my application. I never understood why until I sat at the other end of the interview table.
People who have resumés that don’t immediately jump out as a good fit for a job are usually removed from the candidate pool before ever getting a chance to interview, despite potentially being the best fit for a job.
Background | Reviewing Mass Application
Today’s job sites allow you to apply to dozens of postings in a few hours with just a click of a button. While the concept is great for job candidates, the technologies available to hiring teams have not evolved to review the number of candidates each posting receives. As a result, your chances of landing an interview significantly decreases if your resumé doesn’t immediately appear to be a fit.
As is: Each time a candidate clicks apply, a hiring manager receives an email with a resumé, which can amount to hundreds in just a few hours. At this point, somebody has to go through each one and make a decision to interview the candidate based on their resumé alone. Unfortunately, with so many applicants, hiring teams are forced to spend just a few seconds reviewing resumés (6.25 on avg. to be exact) or use scanning software that is often ineffective and causes them to miss out on the qualities that make a potentially great candidate.
For example: When I was reviewing candidates for my previous company, I only had enough time to spend a few moments looking at headlines and a couple experiential bullet points before having to formulate my decision. Eventually, resumés all began to blur together and we would eliminate people based on small nuances. It may not have been fair, but reviewer fatigue is a very real part of the review process.
One thing is clear: This current review process does not work!
Hiring managers currently rely on rigid screening metrics and an impersonal first round process to screen candidates for the next stage. They are doing their best to find the right candidates, but existing methods do not give the entire talent pool a fair chance at finding the right job. Rather than evaluating you as a person, you are forced to check a box or be disqualified.
What hiring managers really need to see in order to distinguish the best candidates are soft skills!
The JabaTalks Interview | Give them more than just a resumé
At JabaTalks, we want to change the way you are reviewed for a job by giving your resumé a voice. Our goal is to make sure every hiring team has a chance to get to know you beyond what is available on paper. By spending just 10 minutes on the JabaTalks interview, you can provide hiring managers with insight into your personality, motivations, and experiences that don’t appear on a resumé. The JabaTalks interview allows you to break away from an impersonal piece of paper and demonstrate how you can make a difference in your desired role.
At JabaTalks, we don’t review answers, screen candidates, or have input on who the company should select. We provide hiring managers with access to your answers so that they have a chance to hear from you, not just the group of candidates who check the box on their list first.
In using our software, many of our clients rely on your JabaTalks interview before even looking at your resumé. As a result, your JabaTalks responses can significantly improve your chances to receive a follow up interview invitation versus the traditional resumé bullet point review.
We think of JabaTalks as an opportunity to complete a phone interview with a company before they deselect candidates based on resumé qualifications. Our goal is not to replace live interviews, but to give you the candidate an opportunity to better express yourselves and explain why you’re a good fit for a position. We have seen too many candidates held back by an inadequate review system. We want to make sure that you are always heard and have the best chance to get to the next stage of the interview process to find full-time employment.