Here is part two of my interview with Tom Schmidt of Resumefit.
You can see part one here.
Click here to download a sample resume using this technology.
Your HR Guy: Some HR people I know are skeptical of any type of psychological battery. How is yours different or how do you ensure that the results are valid?
Tom Schmidt, Resumefit: Many employers are inviting candidates to complete an online assessment. Our assessment is not so much different than many other reliable instruments such as those from DDI or SHL. However, it is workplace specific. The Center for Applied Cognitive Studies where the assessments were developed specializes in workplace behavior. Tens of thousands of these assessments have been completed by individuals and are already being used by Wachovia Bank, FedEx, and other well known clients. The question is, “Will some cognitive scientist or organization be able to shoot a hole through the two assessments we use? The answer is absolutely not.
Regarding employer skepticism of a psychological battery, they only need to complete the assessment themselves and then determine how valid the output is.
HR Guy: Tell me a bit about the science behind your product.
TS: There’s cognitive science in the assessments. It’s based on Costa & McCrae’s 5 factor model, which most cognitive scientists will tell you is the standard. You likely know that the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) is not suitable to make employment decisions, whereas our assessments are workplace behavior specific.
There’s a lot of science behind the digital signature, which has been around for at least twenty years. We figured out how to apply it to a résumé, which was not an easy task. Looks simple enough, but it wasn’t.
The candidate’s Trait Fit Index is based on the Dept. of Labor’s O*NET databases. We’re not the first to use them to measure likely career choices, etc.
The Experience Fit Index is our idea. Although it’s not pure science, we think the process is a lot better than what’s being done today.
HR Guy: One of the advantages of current resumes is the scan factor. I can spend one to two minutes going through a resume and getting a feel for a person’s experience. Does your product address that in any way?
TS: Absolutely. It’s an MS Word document. It’s parser compliant / friendly. The additional content is parsed with the tag “<QualificationSummay>.†We made sure all the headers are compatible with those used by the individual sub-parsers. I can send you the output in HR-XML if you like. Our “next gen†résumé was purposely designed to be scanned by the human eye as well as a computer.
HR Guy: How do you think your product fits into the future of resumes? What do you think that future looks like?
TS: Our Dig-Sig IERS™ addresses the real problems of résu-mess for both the candidate and the employer. It results in a win-win scenario for all constituencies in the hiring process. We have three assumptions, which no one so far as argued:
1. A well informed hiring decision will always be better than a poorly informed one.
2. Candidates desire good job fit.
3. Employers want to hire the “right†people at all levels in their organization.
Our business model is candidate centric. The résumé is owned by the candidate. It’s their data. They are the ones who want to get to the top of the “right†résumé pile and to the front of the “right†interview line. A Dig-Sig IERS™ helps them get there.
What if a company designed a valid test for accountants to measure their knowledge as well as their personality approach to the workplace. This information could then be included in the candidate’s resume and signed by the credentialing authority. It might cause a new industry to be born to handle credentialing for administrative assistants, network engineers, etc. You get the vision.
Please note that Résuméfit is not a job board. We do not allow searches of our database. There are more than enough résumé silos in existence. Our goal is to make the 40,000+ résumé silos better, by giving candidates the ability to include better data in their résumé and then to subsequently use their Dig-Sig IERS™ in MS Word to populate those résumé silos. The cost to the candidate is only $37 for the first year; $23 for a 12 month period after that ($2.50 monthly for the first 24 months). The candidate pays only for the periods of time they need to use it. Their data is waiting for them if they return several years later because of a layoff, career change, termination, etc. It also comes with a money back guarantee. Fair enough?
I’ll close with this Practical Scenario:
You are among fifty people lined up outside an office waiting to be interviewed. The interviewer’s assistant quickly reviews the line and returns to report that ten candidates brought so much good information with them that they could quickly and accurately include or exclude them from their next short list. Who would they want to see first? The reasonable and logical answer is, “Let’s see those ten first.†Those candidates completed an Integrated Evidentiary Résumé System™.
“Can an IERSâ„¢ represent you better than a standard-traditional resume?†For most we believe the answer is “yes.”