What Can’t A CV Tell You?

Although a CV is an essential part of every recruitment process, it doesn’t tell the full story. A CV is often most useful for ensuring that candidates meet a base level of skills and experience and for getting an overview of a career so far. However, there is a lot that a CV won’t tell you and it’s often these additional details that may have the most influence over whether someone is likely to be a good fit.

Soft skills

Most CVs don’t touch on soft skills, such as communication and interpersonal skills, but these are some of the most crucial components in finding the right person for a role. For interviewers looking to identify soft skills that candidates have these can be tested on recruitment days via group exercises and also by focusing on interview questions designed to reveal opinions on culture and ethos of previous employers, rather than just the function of the role.

Approach to work

Is the candidate motivated and hardworking, dedicated and willing to go the extra mile? It’s just not possible to identify traits like this from a CV. Pre-interview screenings are often a very effective way to get more insight into a candidate’s work ethic. This could take the form of a phone conversation in which you’re able to ask about approach to workload, employment challenges etc or performance related tasks that enable you to see how candidates tackle situations in person.

Team player

Anyone can include the words “team player’ on a CV but there is often a big difference between this and the reality of team working and functioning effectively under management. In order to determine this it’s necessary to gain some insight into the individual’s personality, whether they work well under instruction and how they respond to direction and feedback. Face-to-face interviews and group exercises can help to shed more light on whether someone is going to be a strong performer in your specific company and culture.

Perceptions of others

It’s often useful to get an idea of how someone is regarded in the workplace and the kind of reputation they’ve built. However, this can also be difficult to do before the references stage. Questions focused on how friends or colleagues would describe a candidate can also be useful when it comes to getting more insight into the perceptions of others.

It’s important to go beyond the CV if you’re serious about finding a candidate who is the ideal fit for the business. Skype interviews, testing and face-to-face interviews all offer opportunities to gain more insight.

Find more advice as an employer by getting in touch with the 2i Recruit team today.


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