#Why job recruiters are taking the time to read every resume

When Chelsea-based Sword Health advertised for physical therapists a few months ago, the company was deluged with resumes. “We got over 100 in 24 hours,” said Tak Nguyen, chief people officer at the virtual physical therapy provider.

The company put a pause on the Internet job posting. Next, they went through the resumes to see who met the minimum criteria (a doctorate in physical therapy) and invited them to take the next step: an at-home emotional intelligence and cognitive abilities assessment.

“We need people who can listen and reason well. Resumes can’t tell you that,” said Nguyen. Those who did well on the assessments were invited for interviews.

Nguyen appreciates that so many job seekers took the time to apply. “We are grateful that they are interested in us,” he said, adding that there’s no way he’d allow artificial intelligence or an algorithm to make employment decisions for him. “We look at candidates as individuals,” he said. “Are they empathetic? That’s as important a criteria as graduating from the very top schools or where they’ve worked.”

In today’s job market, shaped by the pandemic, two things are true: Employers have both a deluge of job applications to consider and they are glad that so many people want to come to work for them. After all, not too long ago the unemployment rate was low and, in many fields, hiring managers had trouble finding qualified candidates.

Recruiting managers are aware that not everyone who applies for their jobs has bothered to research their company or even read the hiring criteria, but they’re not annoyed. “People are hurting,” said Nguyen, a sentiment that’s echoed by many others The Post spoke to.

Managers who are hiring in the pandemic era want to make sure that each applicant has appropriate experience — and a fair shot at landing the job.

“We want to widen the top of the [candidate] funnel as much as possible,” said Laura Sapp, head of talent at Chelsea-based IAC. She and the recruiting teams she oversees at IAC’s brands — such as Angie’s List, Care.com, the Daily Beast, Dotdash, Investopedia and Vimeo — read every resume that comes in. “It’s a lot of work, but we want to see applicants as individuals and get a feel for what a person wants to do and their potential,” she said. Sapp is open to people who want to work their way up, as well.

“We love to grow folks,” she said.

That being said, “resumes should speak to the company and the qualifications of the position for which they are applying,” said Sapp, noting that it’s easy to filter out those that have been prepared without care or sent arbitrarily.

Even mega employers like Amazon are taking the time to personally consider every job application that comes in. Among the 1,000 recruiters at the company, Varun Suri a technical recruiting lead.

“I get excited when I come in every morning to see who applied,” he said.

Suri redirects profiles of job seekers that are outside of his specified area to the appropriate teams for handling, then sends out objective job assessments to those applicants who meet the basic qualifications. These are scored green (schedule a meeting with the hiring team), yellow (consider) or red (send note inviting the applicant to try again later or for another position).

Once Suri sees a green, he immediately sets up a call to prepare the candidate for an interview. He not only goes over things like corporate benefits and compensation, but he tells applicants what questions to expect and even conducts a mock interview, after which he offers feedback. “If anything on the actual interview surprises the job seeker, I haven’t done my job well,” said Suri.

Serial entrepreneur Neal Taparia, who is currently building a business around brain-training app Solitaired, has a different way of narrowing his list of applicants. When he recently received “a crazy influx of resumes” for a marketing role, he invited each applicant to send over an e-mail about why they are interested in the job at Solitaired in particular.

“This gives us an objective way to review candidates and move them further along our hiring process,” said Taparia. “It also qualifies those who are interested. So many candidates pepper spray job applications, it’s tough to discern who is really interested and who isn’t.

Out of the hundreds who applied to Solitaired, less than a quarter sent anything back. The applicant number dwindled again when Taparia asked for a brief presentation. This process led them to great candidates before any selection process had even taken place, which also meant the company was easily able to reach its goals of diversity and inclusion.

Pace Public Relations, which was in Midtown prior to the pandemic, read each of the 100-plus resumes it received for an entry-level assistant account executive position. “It was a lot of work, but it led to a great hire,” said Annie Pace Scranton, president of the company.

The recruiting department at Collage, an all-remote custom photo product maker, is currently hard at work individually reading resumes for the more than 100 temporary customer service positions it needs to fill for the holidays. Around 40 percent of the hires to date are New Yorkers, according to Emma Liebmann, head of talent acquisition.

Why isn’t she using AI or a robot to select candidates for interviews?

“The technology isn’t ready yet,” she said, explaining that it doesn’t pick up on the nuances she looks for, such as a well-formatted resume and why job seekers say they want to work at Collage. Selected applicants complete video interviews and take-home challenges.

Liebmann appreciates the fact that she has so many good choices, and is willing to work hard to ensure that every job seeker has a good and just candidate experience.

Recruiters are also cognizant of the situation behind the resumes.

“As hard as it is to deal with so many inbound applications, we know it’s harder to be a candidate,” said Nguyen.