Should you trust a resume?

Bringing on new hires can be a daunting process for many companies, especially young ones. There is the stress of finding the right mix of qualifications, the right personality and the right skills while staying under budget and getting back to tasks as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, even when you feel confident you found the right fit, employee turnover can have you starting again from square one. A 2012 Allied Workforce Mobility survey found that companies lose 25 percent of all new hires within a year, with the main reason being poor onboarding of recent hires.

The study also found the average cost for a company to recruit a new employee was over $11,000, and a third of all companies reported it took a full year for a new hire to reach full productivity. To minimize risk and avoid taking a loss on new hires, Dave Turner, founder and CEO of GroupLink, shared his “biggest mistake” in making new hires: trusting the resume.

In an Entrepreneur.com article, Turner talked about his original strategy of targeting revenue producers who had a history of creating success where they’d previously been. To find these individuals and get them on board, he used resumes as a vetting tool.

Turner found that reviewing resumes alone led to hiring poor fits for the company. Resumes fail to properly assess the necessary skills, do not measure if a person is the right personality for the company, and of course, can contain exaggerations and falsehoods.

Before deciding to bring a candidate in for an interview, consider implementing a pre employment test to gain a better understanding of his or her hard skills. EmployTest offers over 800 pre-employment tests to help you determine the skills, aptitudes and knowledge of applicants before you hire them.