What exactly does he think the purpose of a resume is? If someone does not have the necessary background or experience for a job, moving forward to an interview is a waste of time for all parties involved.
If anybody wants to writeup a ruleset that mirrors the (definitely fallable) process I used to use, here's the rules:
1. Candidate probably local? {check address, if listed, else check location of previous roles} (required by our clients)
2. Candidate doesn't need sponsorship, probably? {check address, if listed, else check location of previous roles to ensure >5 years working in US, compare against university location} (required by our clients, and saturated market anyway. didn't like this one but that was the job)
3. Candidate has proper job title? {check last job title, ensure it's not >1 year ago, check previous job titles, ensure has had job title for some required amount of time}
4. Candidate has clean work history? {check for gaps between roles, or length of each individual role, look for big gaps or many short jobs} (not necessarily a disqualifier, but will be asked about)
5. Candidate has specific keywords required by position? {scan each job in earliest->oldest chronological order, ensuring recent and decent time spent on {{TECHNOLOGY}}}
If I've gotten to bullet point 5 I'm probably already tapping their phone number into my phone, and doing a final scan for
6. Red flag? {look for political opinions on the resume, opinions of their previous bosses, proudly listed membership of organizations like the KKK (it's happened), too many spelling errors, rants about the job hunting process, odd demands surrounding salary or compensation or work style, or just general signs of weirdness/assholeness/difficult-to-deal-with-ness}
I can sort of understand if it’s been years since the last position and the individual is applying for your company after being away from the market. But a gap in the middle of the job history? Why do you care ?
you're out, mate
(I am also curious to hear why.)
People that can't keep a job, or get a job, often. It was Oil and Gas, so turnover was expected (projects finish, everyone goes away), but if consistently over the last decade or 2 they couldn't get on another project, it was a red flag. Not disqualifying, but a red flag.
If it was a big gap ten years ago, nobody cares. If it was a single big gap less than 5 years ago, probably nobody cares, I'd just have to ask about it, because my client would want to know.
Or, put "2016 - Present," and then if they ask about what kind of notice you need to post, say "oh, I actually don't work there anymore, woops, I forgot to take off the 'to present' on my resume, thanks for bringing that up."
And part of 6 indicates that you are looking for NeuroTypical's "interesting" :-)
That's actually an excellent filter :-). I bet a lot of employers will reject you but others probably will take you probably just for that reason.
It’s not really fair, but I can see the reasoning.
The only exception is if it's a project we all know - like a named Brownfield project on a certain refinery that everyone knows only lasted 8 months or whatever.
Also make sure to highlight your use of JavaScript, whatever web framework, etc. "Coded React frontend in JavaScript" etc.
All you're trying to do is get on the phone. Make sure your frontend skills are hot hot hot, you gotta be able to back this up. Throw an open source projects section on there and list your title as frontend engineer for those, whether they're personal or free work for the city or something (find volunteer civil hack meetups).
So wait, are you going to dismiss my resume if I live far away, even though you don't know whether I'll actually want to move to your town on my own dime? This is something you should be figuring out in a phone screening, not just using your intuition by reading a resume.
Hey man, don't shoot the messenger. It was a saturated job market, we "should" doesn't really apply.
A candidate already local is more likely to accept, there's no chance our client would have to do relocation, no need to worry about them not liking the city or whatever. More reasons to reject such a candidate than bother calling them.
If you're not getting hits from a recruiter, I'd bet several dollars that it's not a background or human ability mismatch, but a plain ol' resume keyword mismatch.
"Know your audience" as they say. The gate keepers aren't technical. They've got a bunch of keywords against which they 'judge your background'. If you wanna maximize your chances of getting through the first non-technical stage, taking time to tailor your resume is time well spent.