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Advice for Employers and Recruiters

How Employers Objectively Screen Out Applicants

Steven Rothberg AvatarSteven Rothberg
February 14, 2006


Students looking for any type of internship should have a careful look at how Fog Creek processes the more than 400 applications that it receives for its five summer internships. Because they receive so many highly qualified candidates, they do not advertise their internships on general job boards such as Monster.com because their perception is that they receive far more unqualified than qualified applicants.
The first step is to screen quickly the resumes and cover letters based upon objective measures that they believe are good predictors of success. Fog Creek then writes letter codes on each application to indicate which of the attributes are possessed by each applicant. For example, for a candidate that has the first three of the six attributes, their application will be marked ABC. A candidate that has the last three of the six attributes will have their application marked DEF. Candidates who are missing an attribute but who appears to be a good candidate for some other reason will get “+” signs added, so their application may be marked ABDF++. The objective screening process reduces the number of candidates from over 400 to about 60, all of which had at least five of the six attributes.


The next stages are more subjective. To reduce the number of candidates from 60 to 30, three senior developers scrutinize each cover letter and resume and assign scores of +1 (I want this person), -1 (unlikely to work out), or 0 (indifferent) to each. The three scores for each candidate are added up, so the total scores will range from -3 at the low end to 3 at the top end. Fog Creek then sorts by that number and then conducts 30 to 60 minute phone screening interviews with the candidates. They first interview candidates with the highest scores and work their way to those with the lowest scores until about 15 have passed the phone screening interview.
For the five summer internships, Fog Creek then flies to New York City the 15 finalists. Fog Creek pays all of their expenses, including their stay in a luxury hotel. The 15 become the five based upon their in-person interviews.
What the Fog Creek process demonstrates is how just how objective many and probably most employers are when screening cover letters and resumes. Candidates who lack the appropriate credentials just don’t make it to the subjective stage where a hiring manager may be inclined to take a chance by giving them an opportunity to prove themselves. And who can blame an employer who receives more than 400 qualified applications for five positions? They’re not in the business of employing people. They are in the business of developing the best software they can as profitably as they can for their clients. Candidates who aren’t qualified for positions shouldn’t expend their energy applying for them. Instead, they should expend that energy improving their qualifications by taking the right classes, improving their grades, successfully completing unpaid internships, and volunteering for non-profits so that they can prove to employers like Fog Creek that they possess the required and even preferred work experience.

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