My wife and I own a home that was built in the 50s. It’s a mid-century charmer that has some quirky personality, and we love it. We love the house so much that we can see ourselves being here for a while, so we’ve spent time dreaming up how to make the space even better. Since we have a corner lot and have been quarantined as much as anyone this year, we’ve spent a lot of time outside waving at neighbors, playing fetch with our dog, Millie, and sharing meals at a picnic table in our front yard.
After a good deal of thinking, we finally decided that a new landscape plan was our next home improvement project. Once we designed the initial plans for elevating our outdoor area, it was time to find a contractor. Maybe you know how this goes. In Austin there are usually several landscaping crews capable of doing any given job. Some are insured, some aren’t. Some have a large company behind them, and some are smaller, family-owned businesses.
In talking with different kinds of landscaping businesses and laying out my requirements, I found crews that were interested in the work and I found crews who openly opted out because the scope of the job was smaller than they typically do.
That’s when it hit me.
The truth is, for any job posted on the internet — or any job a company needs done — there are many capable and interested people who would be more than willing to do it. And if the role is laid out accurately — with benefits, success criteria, and a clear description of what’s in it for the job seeker — some candidates may opt out themselves, which is what you want.
It’s estimated that 98% of job applicants are eliminated after the first resume screening. The problem here is twofold. First, many of these rejections are automatic and based only on a lack of keyword matches. Second, a screener is trained to throw out a resume for a multiple reasons, including: misspelled words, a string of short-tenure jobs, or even an applicant’s name.
Why does this happen?
The reason why resumes get screened so aggressively is because the average job posting gets more than 200 applicants per posting. With a screening process that eliminates 98% of candidates in the first round, it makes sense that a job poster would want to attract a high number of applicants. Their logic is that a higher volume of candidates means more chances of finding the right candidate.
However, we count success a little bit differently at Espresso.
Using the same statistics, only 2% of those 200 applicants are actually a good fit for the position. We would count that as four qualified applicants.
Now, we would actually feel that four applicants for a job post was a little bit too low. We believe that of those 196 job seekers who were automatically rejected, there are some great hires in there that shouldn’t have been eliminated in the first place. Maybe a few of them are even the high-performing up-and-comers who many industries pride themselves on finding.
How do we solve this?
Our simple solution is to break the funnel typically used for hiring. We’re creating a brand new funnel that lets in fewer job seekers at the top with the result that only the qualified candidates get time, energy, and attention from the job poster.
Our theory is that, when rebuilt, this funnel will have closer to 80% of applicants qualified, and only 10–20 total applicants.
Rather than building a system around weeding out candidates, we’re setting up job seekers to opt themselves out if they don’t see a fit. This way, the only ones left are the best-fit job seekers.
How do we make a new funnel?
We no longer rely as heavily on the resume. While it still factors into the process, it comes in later, for reference (where it deserves to be).
Instead of a resume-driven approach, we carefully outline success criteria for a given role and share that with potential candidates. If the candidates like what they read and want to apply, we ask them to answer 2–3 questions that speak to their unique experience with similar success criteria.
Interested in hearing how Espresso can help your organization hire?
Reach out to us at hello@tyespresso.co
We’ll get back to you within the day.
