Hiring the best candidates that meet the job requirements and are a perfect fit for the workplace culture is quite tough, especially in a competitive industry. Screening candidates during the recruitment process and further onboarding can prove to be quite expensive for employers. However, managers want to hire the best talent pool to make effective contributions to the organisation in less amount of time.

Stacks of resumes received by HR Managers require them to do great homework, and churning out the ideal talent from the lot can consume long hours at work all day. Screening resumes to meet the job requirements, skills, and experience for the job role is preliminary stages of candidate filtering. However, only few resumes manage to get selected by the HR. This emphasises on the importance of effective CV drafting and personal branding online.

Here are some red flags HR Managers should notice when screening candidate resumes, before calling candidates and setting them up for interviews:

Employment gaps.  If there is an employment gap for more than 6 months, HR Managers should find out the real reason for job break from the candidate. If possible, the hiring team can also hold a preliminary rounds of interview, conducted via telephone or email.

See: 9 Ways to Avoid Losing Good Employees

Attention to detail failures. Some detail failures like the irrational date of employment, wrong punctuation and spelling mistakes, cut and paste errors (wrongly naming the company or misrepresenting the company) indicate lack of professional attitude and less-thorough behaviours.

Not following the directions. Certain specific directions like cover letter, salary expectation and dates of employment have to be written in specifics by the candidate to provide adequate information about the last tenure and experiences with the previous company.  In case, candidates do not provide adequate info or skip one of those requirements as per the job application process, HR managers should consider it as a red flag.

Backwards career progression. Thorough knowledge and insight about candidate’s career progression will help employers quantify their advancements during the career progression stages with different companies in the past. However, when candidates show decreasing career progression (e.g. from the Vice President to senior managerial roles, HRs should ask why and understand the reason for such downward career progression.

Wording is vague, sloppy and confusing information provided. Language of ambiguity used in a resume is a definite red flag as it’s normally used to disguise lack of experience, knowledge or skillsets. So if you have a resume that poses more questions on your mind, than providing answers, perhaps you need to take a judgment call with careful thought.

These noteworthy facts that are clearly evident red flags in a candidate’s resume, should help ease decision-making choices for hiring managers in their day-to-day life. Candidate screening requires lots of patience but when the process is executed using a methodical strategy, hiring industry’s top notch talent becomes a lot more easier.

Read also: 4 Resume Red Flags That HR Professionals Should Watch For!