Week 6 (#3): Resumes are Bullsh*t??

A new company named HireArt is changing the interview process as we know it. Rather than employers reading through resume after resume (which are sometimes embellished or not a true portrayal of a candidate's credentials), HireArt improves the job candidate pre-screening process by creating online interviews that simulate a real job. Candidates are asked to complete tasks that are similar to what they would encounter on the job (for example: give a presentation, do an Excel analysis, or give a creative pitch for a new product). The responses are recorded via video or submitted as text and attachments, which give employers higher quality information to base their hiring decisions on.

This new interview process helps to better identify qualified candidates for a job by actually being able to prove their worth and skills, especially when often times potential employees are overlooked because they have unorthodox backgrounds that don't necessarily match up with what an employer thinks they need in terms of experience. Also,this process helps to identify candidates who may have oversold themselves on a resume. Since  the potential employees are actually doing the work first, before they are hired, the employer will find out sooner rather than later if they cannot perform to expectations.

Employers who use HireArt to fill a position can choose from HireArt's online library of predefined template questions or can create their own which requires the candidate to actually demonstrate, not just talk about, their skills. When the interview / questions are complete, the employer has the option to review the responses on their own or they can outsource that task to HireArt instead, which includes a team of college professors and industry experts as graders.

I personally think the HireArt system of interviewing is definitely beneficial for a company. Although it may be more time consuming and expensive for an employer to screen through these types of interviews / tasks than it would to look over resumes, the result is that the employer will have a more qualified pool of top candidates. In my experience, my department recently hired a man who clearly oversold himself on a resume and in an interview and was let go soon after because it was evident he could not perform to expectations. If my department had used HireArt and required that the man complete some sample tasks, perhaps they would have realized he wasn't a good fit before they actually used resources to hire and fire him.

Source:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/09/resumes-are-bullshit-hireart-is-better/