Be Sure to Thoroughly Check a Candidate’s Resume

Because if you don’t, you might end up accidentally doing this.

If you follow the link above, you’ll see a Google+ post by Guido van Rossum. He details how a recruiter contacted him, telling him he has “awesome expertise on Python” and that his client “immediately needs a PYTHON Developers [sic].” Spelling and grammar mistakes aside, the recruiter has made a major error. Because he didn’t thoroughly check Van Rossum’s resume, he missed one crucial fact:

Guido van Rossum invented Python. Literally.

So telling him he has “awesome expertise” at Python is a serious understatement, and indeed is extremely condescending and disrespectful. In another serious understatement, Van Rossum commented, “I’m not interested and not available.”

The above is an extreme example of something that happens every day: Recruiters send out messages in bulk to people whose resumes happened to come up in some kind of search, without actually taking a look at any of the resumes.

This can result in confused job hunters getting contacted about jobs they aren’t qualified for, or, as in the case above, jobs they’re overly qualified for.

If you’re working with a recruiting firm and they’re using this tactic, they aren’t likely to bring you the best candidates. And if your internal recruiters are doing this, they might even do irreparable damage to your brand. (Van Rossum will almost certainly never recommend the brand that clueless recruiter was representing.)

Recruiters are under a lot of pressure to source candidates. Sometimes, they have no choice but to cast a wide net and hope for the best. (This is part of the reason why AptoZen is trying to change the hiring process.)

Finding talent is important. But be sure you’re looking in the right places.

And don’t tell Guido van Rossum he has “awesome expertise on Python.” He probably already knows that!

This post was originally published on the AptoZen blog. See the original post here. Learn more about AptoZen.