How To Review Resumes [Employer Guide]

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Reviewing applicant resumes may sound simple enough, but it can quickly become overwhelming once you get into it.

In this article, we’ll explain how to review resumes, why you should review resumes and information to help you decide whether or not you want to use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to review your resumes.

Key Takeaways

Start by checking resumes for minimum qualifications and then go more in-depth from there.
Put more stock in the big picture of candidates’ resumes rather than the exact boxes they check.
An ATS can help you organize a large number of resumes quickly, but it can also cause you to miss qualified candidates.

How to Review Resumes Effectively

Make a checklist of must-have skills and experience. There shouldn’t be more than a handful of items on this list, and all of them should come from the job description you posted.
Sort the resumes into “yes,” “maybe,” and “no” piles. Using the checklist you made, quickly look over each resume to see how well they meet your minimum criteria. If they have some of the qualifications but not all – two years of experience instead of three to five, for example – put them in the maybe pile.
Go through the “maybe” pile again. First, look at how many “yes” and “no” candidates you have. If you have far more in the “no” pile than in the “yes,” focus on which “maybes” you can add to the “yes” pile, and vice versa.

Candidates who may not check all the boxes but look like they may have potential are great fits for the “yes” pile.
Create a rating system. This system should be simple, and it can even be a continuation of your “yes,” “maybe,” and “no” piles. Or, it can also be a number scale with a high number being the best fit and a low number being the worst.

Whatever method you use, just avoid ranking the resumes against each other, and make sure anyone else looking at the resumes is using the same system.
Look for red flags. Now it’s time to look at the resumes you have in your “yes” pile more closely so that you can rate them with your new system. One of the first things you should look for when doing this is any red flags.

Red flags in this context aren’t necessarily deal-breakers, they’re just signals that there could be a problem and to look at it more closely. These include;
- Excessive job-hopping
- Lack of upward movement in career
- Downward movement in career
- Unexplained gaps in employment
- Careless mistakes and typos
- Failure to follow application instructions
- Too much unrelated information
Do some more research. If a resume has some red flags, take a look at their cover letter and application to see if they explain anything there, or simply make a note to ask the candidate about it in their interview if they get that far.

Yes, things like gaps in employment may look questionable, but you don’t want to miss out on a great candidate just because they took time off from their career.

They might have been deployed by the military, fighting an illness, or taking care of a child or relative, all of which show dedication and a willingness to work hard – valuable assets for an employee to have.
Look at their work history. As you do this, specifically pay attention to the details candidates include about the results of their efforts, as well as the role they played in projects.

Someone saying they supported a team that saved the company thousands of dollars is very different from someone saying they led a team that saved the company thousands of dollars.
Look at their skills. Compare how the applicant’s skills line up with the skills listed in the job description. Note how many soft versus hard skills they list, and any examples of how they’ve used those skills in their work history sections.
Note the big picture. After you’ve spent some time picking apart the smaller details of the resume, zoom out and look at the resume as a whole. What do the career path, skills, and interests tell you about the candidate?

You may have some candidates who are clearly driven and hardworking but are missing a few qualifications – is it possible to fill those in with some training? Or, a candidate who has the perfect list of skills has a history of bailing on jobs after just a few months – is that who you want to bring onto your team?

Asking yourself questions like these can help you drill down to what’s most important for the position and which candidates fit that best.
Take your observations back to your committee. Two (or more) heads are usually better than one when reviewing resumes, so if you don’t already have a committee, create one. It doesn’t need to have more than two or three people, but having extra perspectives and eyes can be vital to finding the best candidates.

Work together to narrow your applicants down to a few that you want to invite to an interview.

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Tips for Reviewing Resumes

Compare the resume to the job description. Always go back to the job description as you review resumes. This will remind you of what the position requires so you can look at the candidate’s qualifications and work history in the context of the role you’re hiring for.
Focus on potential. There is rarely, if ever, a perfect candidate, and this is especially true if you’re in a market where employees are in short supply. Instead of looking for a candidate who meets 100% of your criteria, look for resumes that have the foundational skills you’re looking for, even if they need a little extra training.
Look at the cover letter. Cover letters can answer a lot of questions you have about candidates’ resumes. So, before you write someone off because there’s a gap in their employment history or they had a few different jobs within a year, read their cover letter to see if they explain anything there.
Take notes. All those resumes will start to run together quickly, so use sticky notes or a notebook to take notes on each one as you read through it. This will also help you compare notes more effectively with your resume committee.
Pay attention to tailored messaging (or the lack thereof). It’s pretty easy to tell if a candidate’s resume is super generic and full of meaningless buzzwords or if they tailored it to your job description.

A generic resume isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker, but it can help you tell the invested candidates apart from the ones who are just looking for a paycheck.
Note any overqualified candidates. Employees who are overqualified for their roles can quickly become bored and frustrated, driving them to look elsewhere for employment.

On the other hand, they can also bring a wealth of expertise to your company. If you can find an overqualified candidate who is passionate about what you do and/or is going to be content with an easy job, they might be an amazing hire.

Why You Should Review Resumes

Reviewing resumes is a key part of the hiring process. This is where you get an idea of which candidates will further your organization and which ones won’t be able to handle the job’s responsibilities.

Completing this process well helps minimize the risks of hiring a new employee. These risks include;

Hiring someone who isn’t qualified to do the job. Whether their technical skills are lacking or they’re lazy and inefficient, doing an in-depth resume review can help you weed out the candidates who won’t make it in this role.
Hiring someone whose personality isn’t a fit for the company or team. Even the most qualified candidates can be bad hires if they don’t get along with their teammates or support the company’s values.

While the interview stage is the most effective at determining cultural fit, resumes can also give you an idea of what someone is about.
Hiring someone who won’t stay long at the company. Sometimes people are just flaky, but sometimes people leave their jobs quickly because the reality role doesn’t align at all with the job description at all.

Finding someone who is a good fit for the position – not just a qualified candidate – will help you minimize this risk.

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Should You Use ATS?

You should use an ATS (Applicant Tracking System) if you have hundreds of applications and resumes to sift through in a short amount of time.

The biggest use of these systems is to automatically filter resumes based on criteria and keywords you enter, but they can also help you communicate with and manage applicants.

As with anything, there are some pros and cons to using ATS.

Pros:

They streamline and organize the hiring process.
They save you time by keeping you from having to review resumes that don’t meet your minimum qualifications.
They can sort and create pools of applicants that you can pull from for future roles.
They help reduce discrimination since they don’t consider names or other factors when sorting resumes.

Cons:

They can keep you from seeing some candidates that may actually be a good match just because the candidate didn’t put enough of the right keywords in their resume.
They can be complicated to learn how to use.
They can struggle to read misspelled words and certain fonts, resulting in them blocking qualified candidates based on those issues alone.
They can be fooled by unqualified candidates who stuff their resumes with keywords.

You will have to determine whether or not an ATS is a good fit for your team, but here are some common scenarios where organizations often find them helpful:

They have to sift through hundreds of resumes.
They don’t have much time to complete the hiring process.
Multiple people or teams need to access the applications and resumes.
They want hiring process analytics.
Technology is a big part of their company culture and/or brand.

Reviewing Resumes FAQ

What should you look for when reviewing a resume?

You should look for work experience, skills, and education that match the job’s qualifications when reviewing a resume. They don’t have to be an exact match, but they should reflect what you’re looking for in an employee.

For example, even if the person hasn’t worked in a similar position before, look for ways their work experience could carry over into this position. In addition, consider their educational background. Does it match the qualifications you’re looking for?

Finally, look at their soft and hard skills – what could be beefed up with a little training, and what is key for them to have already in order to succeed in the role? You can train someone on how to use a particular software far more easily than you can train them to be creative or diligent.
What are some red flags in a resume?

Red flags in a resume include:
- Excessive job-hopping
- Lack of upward movement in career
- Downward movement in career
- Unexplained gaps in employment
- Careless mistakes and typos
- Failure to follow application instructions
- Too much unrelated information
In this context, red flags aren’t dealbreakers so much as potential issues that you need to look into further. For example, someone may have changed jobs quickly because they moved, realized that a work environment was extremely toxic, or any number of other perfectly acceptable reasons.
What are four common resume mistakes?

Four common resume mistakes are;
- Typos and grammatical errors
- Poor formatting/too long of a resume
- Not enough details about the magnitude of work experience and accomplishments
- Using too many vague buzzwords
These are just a few of the mistakes that are common to find in resumes, but they can be damaging to the applicant’s candidacy.

“Small” mistakes like typos and formatting issues communicate that the writer may not be very attentive to detail or thorough in their work.

Not including enough details about what they accomplished makes it difficult to tell what they actually did and what they’re capable of – not to mention if they’re telling the truth or not.

Using too many empty buzzwords makes them sound like they’re a poor communicator or overcompensating for a lack of experience.

None of these things are necessarily deal breakers by themselves, but they can help to hire managers quickly narrow down their applicant pool.
Is it unprofessional to have a two-page resume?

No, it isn’t unprofessional to have a two-page resume. If you have over ten years of relevant work experience, an extensive list of publications or projects you’ve worked on, or similar valuable information that you need more space to communicate, a two-page resume is perfectly acceptable.

However, if you have less than ten years of experience or are filling your resume with too much fluff, you should stick to a one-page resume. This is also true if you would be stretching your content to fill two pages – tighten it up and fit it to one page in that case.

Evaluating Candidates

Author

Caitlin Mazur

Caitlin Mazur is a freelance writer at Zippia where she has written 140+ articles that have reached over 1 mil viewers as of June 2023. Caitlin is passionate about helping Zippia’s readers land the jobs of their dreams by offering content that discusses job-seeking advice based on experience and extensive research.