The advantage of working with a reputable agency is that they will take on the heavy lifting when it comes to qualifying and reviewing a candidate’s profile prior to submission.  But whether you are using an agency or completing a candidate search on your own, you should absolutely do a quick dive into a candidate’s profile before agreeing to a first interview.

Re-Read the Resume

• The resume should match the whole profile you are looking for. Go beyond skills and experience. You can learn a lot about a candidate by looking at how much care they have taken to curate their resume.
• Is their objective clear?
• Have they made it easy to get in contact with them or to review their work?

Confirm Social Profiles

• A LinkedIn profile should confirm basic dates of employment, education, and technical skills. Make sure that these all match the resume.
• Review their activity to see what kind of professional groups they follow, look for additional recommendations, and get an idea of what they are posting.

Run a Search

• Run a quick Google search to see where else your candidate might be active – clubs, events, and social profiles.

Technical Profiles

• Look at their personal website or technical profile on GitHub. Are they working to improve skills? Do they have passion projects?

Identify Common Connections

• Chances are, a seasoned job seeker in your industry has a common connection to you, your staff, or someone within your organization. This is a window to get insight about the applicant if you are still on the fence about interviewing them.

Most importantly, you need to recognize that taking twenty minutes to dive into their profiles can save you and your team a significant amount of time in the interviewing process. Interview the right people first and get your projects started faster.