When the clients review the candidate profiles, they are just concerned about how the candidate would fit in the position offered. And when they don’t find a reason, the resumes are straight away rejected. A company may lose on a well-deserving candidate just because the candidate profile sent by the staffing agency or consultancy is not impressive.
A well-written candidate profile not only depicts how well the candidate fits in the desired position but also displays an overall efficiency of the staffing firm. The selection or rejection solely depends on how that candidate profile is presented before the client or the company.
A well put and concise candidate profile has much better chances of getting selected. This post throws light on an ideal candidate profile and how a resume formatting service helps in building one?
Ideal Candidate Profile
The resume or the candidate profile sent to the client cast the first impression of the candidate. If the things on the resume are messed up/ cluttered or are not as per the industry standards, it gets rejected even before the client takes the first look.
If the candidate profile fails to display the skills, achievements, strengths, suitability and relevant attributes of the candidate, the staffing firm may not be able to “sell” the candidate to the company.
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An ideal candidate profile should be well-crafted to ensure engagement and should highlight the attributes that are most relevant to the company.
What is the difference between a Candidate Profile and Resume?
Resumes help the recruiters and hiring managers to see only the basic and stripped down information about an applicant. Resumes are just an overview of the skills, contact information, education, and experience.
A candidate profile sent to the client is a more detailed form of the resume. It is just like a detailed resume but designed as per the needs of the company and complying with industry standards. These profiles present a more robust image of the candidate. All the contact information is removed and additional information is added that gives more detail about what the candidate is beyond the conventional bullet points.
An ideal candidate profile is designed to make it a perfect fit as per the client’s requisites.
What to Include in a Candidate Profile?
To craft an ideal candidate profile, there are several things that need to be included.
1. Suitability of the Candidate
The staffing firms usually enclose a small covering letter along with the candidate profile that briefly states how the candidate is a perfect fit. This brief introduction should be impressive and engaging and should hook the client to read more. The introduction should vividly state how this candidate stands above the rest.
2. Skills and Experience for the Job Role
The client would not directly focus on the experience or understand the skills by just looking at the candidate’s resume. It’s the responsibility of the staffing firm to properly highlight the candidate’s achievements, skills, experience and other relevant traits that the client has been looking for. This will help the company/ client to know the candidate and compare it with other profiles in a better way.
3. Notes from References
It is very important to mention the candidate references. If possible, including the information received from the reference-check conducted would add credibility to the profile. The references section has to be small. To keep it precise, only the highlights from reference talks should be included.
4. Compensation Expectations
This is a very important point to include. Both the parties i.e. the client and the candidate should be clear about the offered and the expected salary. A little mismatch could be negotiated. Things would not work if either of the sides is unwilling to compromise. By communicating the compensation offered by the company and vice versa, the staffing firm can save a lot of everyone’s time.
5. Availability
The staffing firm should intimate the client regarding the availability of the candidate. By knowing when the candidate can join the company, the selection decisions can be finalized. Some candidates may get rejected if the availability criteria don’t match.
How to Create a Candidate Profile?
Manually creating a candidate profile is an arduous and time-consuming activity. Most of the recruiters in the staffing firms spend more than half of their time just sifting through the resumes. This eats up most of their time that could have been spent in pitching more clients and expanding the business.
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What is the best solution for creating a candidate profile?
It’s by getting a resume formatting tool onboard. This resume formatting service is generally inbuilt in most of the small company applicant tracking systems. The resumes are formatted, parsed and stored in a candidate database. The resumes can easily be changed into the desired format within a blink of an eye. The recruiters can now focus on other staffing firm activities as well.
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How does a Resume Formatting Service work?
There are a plethora of features offered by staffing agency software such as
- Unlimited Resume Templates
The resumes can easily be customized and formatted using a resume formatting tool.
- Unlimited Email Templates
Based on the client’s needs and branding preferences, the staffing firms can create their own custom emails using email templates.
- Watermarks
The consultancies and placement agencies can protect their hard work by watermarking the candidate profile. It also suppresses the candidate’s contact information.
- Accurate and Fast Parsing
The modern-day resume formatting tools save time by providing quality-driven results and not merely document management.</