Sounding the Depths

Looking Beneath the Résumé: Evaluating What Matters.

Finding qualified candidates is an important part of talent acquisition, but understanding whether those individuals have the qualifications and capabilities a position requires involves an entirely different set of considerations. An organization may attract an impressive group of applicants and still struggle to evaluate them effectively if its assessment process isn't clearly defined.

Sounding the Depths is the South point of The Compass because it focuses on looking beyond résumés and first impressions to understand candidates' skills, experience, capabilities, and suitability for the work.

When those elements work together, organizations have more meaningful, consistent information to support the hiring decisions that follow.

When those elements work together, hiring decisions become more deliberate, understandable, and closely connected to what the organization is trying to accomplish.

Why the Selection Process Matters

A Strong Candidate Pool Is Only Part of the Equation

Throughout my career, I've worked with organizations that invested considerable time and resources in attracting candidates, only to discover that the next stage of the hiring process presented its own challenges. Recruiting teams might have been delivering qualified applicants, but hiring managers weren't always aligned on what they wanted, interviews varied considerably from one candidate to another, or decisions were delayed because expectations hadn't been clearly established.

Those situations can be frustrating for everyone involved. Recruiters may feel they're continually working toward changing requirements, hiring managers may struggle to compare candidates objectively, and applicants can be left wondering what the organization is actually looking for.

One of the first questions I would ask in that situation is whether everyone involved shares the same understanding of what success in the position requires.

A job description may outline responsibilities and qualifications, but that doesn't automatically mean the hiring team has agreed on which capabilities are essential, how those capabilities should be evaluated, or how much weight different criteria should receive.

Without that clarity, selection decisions can become heavily influenced by individual preferences, first impressions, or inconsistent interview conversations. Even well-intentioned managers may reach very different conclusions because they're evaluating different things.

I believe an effective selection process should create enough structure to support meaningful comparisons without treating candidates as interchangeable. People bring different backgrounds, experiences, and strengths, and a thoughtful evaluation should help organizations recognize relevant capabilities rather than simply reward the person whose career path looks most familiar.

A well-designed process can also improve the candidate experience. When expectations are clear, interviews are purposeful, and communication is consistent, applicants have a better opportunity to understand the role and demonstrate what they can contribute.

Ultimately, the objective isn't to make hiring decisions more complicated. It's to create a process that helps organizations make those decisions with greater clarity and confidence.

Defining What Success Requires

Creating Consistent Interview Practices

Before evaluating applicants, an organization should understand which skills, experiences, knowledge, and competencies are necessary for success in the position.

I believe it's important to distinguish between genuine requirements and preferences that have simply become part of a familiar job description. An overly restrictive list may exclude capable individuals, while vague requirements can leave hiring managers without a useful basis for comparing candidates.

Clear, job-related criteria provide a foundation for the rest of the process and help everyone involved understand what they're evaluating.

Creating Consistent Interview Practices

Interviews are valuable opportunities to learn about candidates, but their usefulness depends on the questions being asked and the information being gathered.

A structured approach helps ensure that applicants for the same position are evaluated against consistent, job-related criteria. That doesn't mean every conversation must feel scripted or impersonal. It means the hiring team has agreed on the core information it needs and uses a comparable approach to gathering it.

Well-designed behavioral, situational, or technical questions can help candidates provide relevant examples of their experiences and capabilities.

Evaluating Skills and Capabilities

Creating Consistent Interview Practices

Supporting Fair and Consistent Decisions

Depending on the position, interviews alone may not provide all the information necessary to assess a candidate's qualifications.

Work samples, job-related exercises, technical assessments, or other appropriate evaluation methods can offer additional insight when they're thoughtfully selected and consistently administered.

The important question is whether an assessment actually helps the organization understand something relevant to the work. Adding tests simply because they're available can create unnecessary barriers without improving the quality of the decision.

Supporting Fair and Consistent Decisions

Turning Candidate Evaluations Into Useful Information

Supporting Fair and Consistent Decisions

Selection practices should give candidates a fair opportunity to demonstrate their qualifications and should focus on information relevant to the position.

Clear evaluation criteria, appropriate documentation, consistent processes, and interviewer preparation can help reduce the influence of unrelated personal preferences or unsupported assumptions.

Fairness also requires attention to accessibility, reasonable accommodations, and applicable employment requirements. Organizations should ensure their assessment practices are appropriate for the positions and candidates involved.

Aligning Recruiters and Hiring Managers

Turning Candidate Evaluations Into Useful Information

A recruiting team can identify strong candidates and still encounter difficulties if hiring managers have different expectations or change their criteria throughout the process.

I believe recruiters and hiring managers should have meaningful conversations before recruiting begins about the role's priorities, the qualities that matter most, and how decisions will be made.

That alignment can reduce unnecessary delays, improve feedback, and create a more consistent experience for candidates.

Turning Candidate Evaluations Into Useful Information

As candidate evaluations take place, the hiring team needs a way to organize and interpret the information being gathered.

Consistent evaluation criteria and clear feedback can help managers distinguish between demonstrated capabilities, areas requiring further clarification, and personal impressions that may not be particularly relevant.

The objective isn't to reduce candidate evaluation to a mechanical score. It's to develop useful, comparable, job-related information that supports the final hiring decisions addressed in Choosing the Crew.

Respecting the Candidate Throughout the Process

Candidates are evaluating employers at the same time employers are evaluating them. An interview process that is confusing, unnecessarily lengthy, or poorly communicated can influence whether an individual remains interested in the opportunity.

Clear expectations, reasonable timelines, accessible assessments, timely communication, and respect for candidates' time all contribute to a stronger selection experience.

A thoughtful process should help both parties gather the information they need to make an informed decision.

When these elements work together, selection becomes more than a series of interviews. It becomes a structured, practical way to connect the organization's hiring needs with the capabilities and potential of the people being considered.

When Candidate Evaluations Lack Consistency

Inconsistent Evaluations Create Problems That Go Beyond Hiring

Imagine an organization interviewing several candidates for the same position. One hiring manager focuses on technical experience, another places greater emphasis on communication style, and a third is particularly interested in whether candidates have worked for a familiar company. All three may believe they're making reasonable assessments, but without shared criteria, their evaluations may tell very different stories.

The difficulty becomes especially apparent when the team needs to compare candidates or explain why one person is better suited to the role than another.

I've also seen how changing requirements can disrupt the recruiting process. A recruiter may begin sourcing candidates based on an agreed set of qualifications, only to learn after several interviews that the hiring manager has decided a different background or additional experience is essential. By that point, considerable effort has already been invested, and otherwise relevant candidates may have been evaluated against expectations they were never told about.

These situations don't necessarily mean the individuals involved are making poor decisions. Often, they indicate that the selection process hasn't been clearly established or that the people participating in it haven't reached a shared understanding of the role.

The consequences can extend beyond additional recruiting work. Candidates may lose interest when the process becomes unpredictable, hiring timelines may grow longer, and managers may make decisions without enough relevant information to support their conclusions.

There can also be longer-term implications. If an organization consistently selects candidates based on factors that don't reflect the actual demands of the work, it may find that some new employees struggle with expectations that weren't adequately evaluated during hiring.

I believe the solution begins with establishing clearer criteria, creating useful interview practices, and ensuring that participants understand how the selection process is supposed to work. That doesn't eliminate the need for judgment or guarantee that every hire will succeed, but it can provide a stronger foundation for decision-making.

A consistent process should help organizations recognize the differences that matter while giving candidates a fair opportunity to demonstrate what they can do.

How I Approach Candidate Evaluation

Making the Hiring Process More Effective Without Making It More Complicated

When I'm evaluating an organization's candidate assessment practices, I begin by understanding how applicants are currently evaluated. That includes the relationship between recruiters and hiring managers, the criteria used to assess qualifications, the interview process, and the ways evaluation feedback is gathered and documented.

I'm particularly interested in understanding where the process creates frustration. Are hiring managers struggling to agree on what they're looking for? Are candidates moving through numerous interviews without a clearly defined purpose? Do recruiters receive useful feedback, or are they simply told that someone wasn't the right fit? Are hiring decisions delayed because responsibilities or expectations aren't clear?

These questions can reveal opportunities to improve the process without necessarily introducing additional technology, more interview stages, or complicated assessment systems.

Depending on the situation, I may recommend clarifying position requirements, establishing more consistent evaluation criteria, reviewing interview questions, examining the sequence of hiring activities, or improving communication among the people involved. I also look at whether the process is creating unnecessary barriers for qualified candidates and whether the available information supports reasonable, job-related decisions.

One area I believe deserves particular attention is the relationship between what an organization says it needs and what it's actually evaluating. If communication skills, problem-solving ability, technical knowledge, or customer service experience are essential to success, the selection process should provide a meaningful opportunity to assess those capabilities.

I also recognize that organizations have different hiring needs. The evaluation process for a high-volume hourly position shouldn't necessarily look the same as the process for a specialized technical role or a senior leadership position. The level of structure, assessment, and involvement should make sense for the responsibilities and requirements of the work.

My objective is to help organizations create selection practices that are clear, consistent, practical, and appropriate to their circumstances. I want recruiters and hiring managers to have a better understanding of how decisions are made, while candidates experience a process that is professional and respectful.

Effective selection shouldn't feel like an obstacle course. It should help everyone involved make more informed decisions about whether the opportunity is a good match.

How Sounding the Depths Connects to The Compass

Better Selection Decisions Begin Long Before the Interview

Sounding the Depths is closely connected to several other points of The Compass because effective candidate evaluation depends on the information and expectations established throughout the recruiting process.

Charting the Course helps an organization understand the workforce capabilities it expects to need, while Knowing Your Waters contributes insight into the candidate audience. Casting a Wider Net addresses where and how those individuals are reached, and Flying Your Colors helps communicate the opportunity in a way that reflects the employer's actual value.

By the time candidates begin interviewing, those earlier decisions have already influenced who enters the evaluation process and what they expect from the organization.

The candidate experience becomes particularly relevant here because interviews and assessments are important interactions between an applicant and a potential employer. An evaluation process may be thoughtfully designed, but if it is unnecessarily confusing, inconsistent, or poorly communicated, it can still discourage qualified individuals from continuing.

Choosing the Crew builds on this work by using the information gathered during evaluation to support informed final hiring decisions. Sounding the Depths establishes what the organization knows about its candidates, while Choosing the Crew focuses on how that information is used to determine whom to hire.

The Navigation System also plays a role through applicant tracking systems, interview scheduling tools, assessment platforms, and the information used to support candidate evaluations. Those systems should help the organization manage a consistent process rather than create additional complexity.

Finally, Anchoring Your Talent provides an opportunity to examine what happens after hiring. By considering onboarding experiences, performance expectations, and appropriate post-hire feedback, organizations may identify useful ways to improve how they define and evaluate qualifications during future recruiting efforts.

These connections reinforce why I believe selection should be considered part of a broader talent acquisition strategy rather than a separate step that begins when candidates arrive for interviews.

When the disciplines work together, organizations have a stronger foundation for attracting, evaluating, hiring, and supporting the people they need.

Let's Look at How Your Organization Evaluates Candidates

Is Your Evaluation Process Giving You the Information You Need?

If your organization is attracting candidates but struggling to move them through the hiring process efficiently, it may be worth examining what happens after applications arrive.

Perhaps hiring managers have different expectations about the qualifications that matter, interviews aren't producing the information needed to compare candidates, or decisions are taking longer than they should. You may also be noticing that recruiting teams receive inconsistent feedback, that candidates withdraw before decisions are made, or that new employees sometimes struggle with requirements that weren't clearly evaluated during hiring.

These situations can have several underlying causes, and I don't believe there's a universal selection process that will solve every problem. The right approach depends on the positions being filled, the people involved, the organization's resources, and the outcomes it hopes to achieve.

At Storms Consulting, I can help examine existing selection practices, identify areas where greater clarity or consistency may be useful, and recommend practical improvements suited to your organization. That might involve reviewing interview structures, evaluation criteria, recruiter and hiring manager communication, or the candidate experience throughout the decision-making process.

If you already know that selection is an area you want to improve, we can discuss a focused consulting engagement. If you'd prefer to explore how the issue connects to the rest of your talent acquisition function, the Talent Audit provides a broader starting point.

My goal is to help organizations develop hiring practices that support informed decisions while respecting the people who participate in the process.

Let's build a candidate evaluation process that provides meaningful information, supports better hiring decisions, and respects the people participating in it.

Sounding the Depths

Looking Beneath the Résumé: Evaluating What Matters.

Why the Selection Process Matters

A Strong Candidate Pool Is Only Part of the Equation