Look beyond the resume
Daily as we go about our days we come across people from all walks of life. Just passing by, without questions or conversations, mostly without a second look and, with some judgment almost always. The stories of each one as different and similar as one another being untold as we pass by and go on with our lives. And we come together, a bunch of strangers by a corporate system of office, a selected few based on the summaries of our lives on a page or two, our resumes.
A resume is supposed to give you an idea of who might fit into your organization. Everything that we are from childhood to the now, all of it compressed into this document. Our skills, achievements, and everything that we’d want to be. But, is that all that matters? Our journey to achieve our goals summed up from academic or professional perspective with nothing to signify who we really might be? Because at the end of the day you would be working alongside this person, this walking, talking, expressing individual. And not a set of degrees and expertise. It’s a thought-provoking aspect that we simply pay attention to what or where this person is rather than who. And focus on their journey as a set of the timeline of organizations rather than their stories in between them.
A TEDx talk by Regina Hartley called “Why the best hire may not be the perfect resume” explains this philosophy with a lot of ease and conviction. It truly makes you reflect on your own perspective for hiring. She called it the resumes of a Silver spoon and a scrapper. A silver spoon is someone with an elite school history followed by all the right experiences, always on the right path to success. And a scrapper is someone who has an average school history and professional experience in the spectrum of the singing waitress to clerical work. Clearly, very different journeys, very different background but at the moment both equally qualified for the said role. Your reflex for shortlisting would almost always go to the former. As that is the norm. She explains why even the scrapper deserves a chance at this job and rightly so.
But why does this differentiation exist? When you look at a resume and look at that perfect order of things, with a brilliant academic and professional background, one could automatically assume that this person can fit the role like no other. Granted that took a lot of hard work and discipline to get the order of things. But does that make him/her a perfect fit? Probably not. Someone who has come from set ways may not be open to new ideas of working. This person may not want to stick around at the slightest inconvenience because inconvenience is not something he/she may have experienced on a higher scale. Whereas when you look at a resume with its ups and downs, with detours and disorder, there is a story that you are missing. Several stories in fact, of struggles and pain, of mishappenings and lost chances, of conditions that might seem impossible to overcome and of situations that are usually too real for us to heed to. But here they are, equally qualified for the work, equally deserving of the job by the criteria set by you, then why would you not consider them, at least a chance for an interview just because they seem different to your eyes.
The people who come from such backgrounds, usually have stories that can blow your mind and wonder how they are sitting in front of you. This reason is exactly why they are more than deserving to be working with you. Their resilience to overcome all kinds of adversities shows a different kind of mental strength which especially when are working in a high-pressure situation can work wonders. Maybe they were devoid of the financial amenities and couldn’t get into an ABC school. But they got through that and learned what they need to learn. Maybe they have conditions like dyslexia which made the process even more difficult but here they are. Maybe they were abused, mistreated and were denied the childhood they deserve, but here they are. And these people who have seen the worst times have the will to get through most of the things in life. “Happiness can be found in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light.”, the Great Dumbledore said this to Harry Potter and is something to live by. But these people who you may consider unfit for your role, have done this time and again. Having this kind of positivity around you will not only benefit the work but would definitely light up everybody around them and whoever suffered from being positive?
The greatest of minds were made in situations as such. Struggles with Dyslexia, failing in school and dropping out of college made a Bill Gates. Poverty, insufficient schooling and dyslexia made a Tom Cruise. Dropping out of college, jumping from masseur to fashion designing to co-finding the company of tweets made Jack Dorsey. The names to the list are endless. But the only thing common is their will to persist and be where they are. So what if someone does not come from an Elite school, what if they divulged in one too many career directions, their skills are varied and you could not find their perspective from someone else, what if someone had to take some time off due to situations unavoidable, they found their way back and that determination is not something that comes overnight. So what if someone grew up with a learning disability, their disabilities made them better listeners and gave them a kind of attention to detail that others simply don’t possess.
Hardships mold people, their mental abilities bloom out of it and they strive through with a vision to only always reach a better space. They shape their personalities with a charm that only they can wear. They can laugh at situations where most wouldn’t because they’ve seen worse and know it gets better, all you need is a little bit sense of humor to get through it and can maybe teach you the same too. You might find yourself laughing at the situation and whoever resented laughing anyways?
Having someone whose resume is not only different but with a story to tell not only benefits the work that you do and the work environment, but it has people working with them who would not run away at the first sign of difficulty at work, they are the people who stick by and know how to handle it with grace.
The human factor behind hiring is often forgotten. In this fast-paced world, where technologies are peaking and everyone’s expected to churn out the best of work every single day, it is forgotten that all these technologies are also made by humans and worked on by humans as well, you aren’t hiring Sophia the robot. We work with different people with real emotions and stories, not where all they have been. It is an influencing factor but not as influencing as their entire experience of existing. We need to start seeing people for what they are capable of and not just what they represent on a paper. For everyone is more than mere degrees and experience, it only comes down to do you have the means to let them bloom?
Preethi Anchan
Content Marketeer and Talent Specialist
Intuhire
www.intuhire.com
