The Resume Does All the Talking

Everything you learned in the screen and the interview stays with you. The hiring manager decides whether to interview the candidate from their resume alone.

Most resumes are now written or polished with AI. They all read well, and many don’t reflect the candidate behind them.

From the hiring manager’s side, your send-out looks exactly like one from a recruiter who never spoke to the candidate.

Most send-outs are a short message with the resume attached: a line or two of summary, and a request to set up an interview.

The hiring manager skims the message, finds nothing to evaluate, and opens the resume. It’s the only real information you’ve given them.

So whether the candidate gets an interview comes down to the resume, because it’s the only thing in the send-out to evaluate.

So the hiring manager skims a resume instead of acting on your judgment.

• You send the resume with a request for an interview, and little else.
• Your send-out gives no analysis of how the candidate fits the role, and no tradeoffs.
• What you learned in the interview stays in your head and never reaches the hiring manager.
• The hiring manager’s first interview goes over the same ground as yours, frustrating the candidate and slowing the search.

• There’s no agreed standard to write against. Without agreed requirements, the send-out has nothing to argue against.
• The client’s process strips it out. Some clients pass only the resume to the hiring manager, through HR or an applicant tracking system.