As Employment Scene Shifts in New Economic Era, Employers Learning to Read the Warning Signs in Resumes and Interviews, According to MRI.

Business Editors

CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 3, 2001

While just a year ago some employers were so desperate to hire new employees that they barely had time to scrutinize their candidates thoroughly, today these employers are taking a second, and more careful look at whom they hire.

This according to top recruiters at Management Recruiters International, Inc. (MRI), the world's largest search and recruitment organization, and a subsidiary of CDI Corp. (NYSE:CDI), a global top 10 provider of staffing and outsourcing.

Companies still desperately need key employees, but they have learned that the old saying about haste and waste is profoundly true. And while almost any resume or interview sin could be explained away by an over-anxious hiring authority, today there are definite red flags that raise deal-breaking questions.

"There are still more jobs than there are candidates in many functions and industries," said Allen Salikof, president and CEO of MRI. "But we're seeing hiring authorities substantially tighten the criteria they're using for evaluating candidates. It's simply too expensive for them in the long run to make hiring mistakes."

Salikof notes that the new level of scrutiny starts right with the candidate's resume and intensifies in the interview process. The obvious red flags still apply such as leaving a previous job without appropriate notice or no verifiable work references. But other tell tales are now commonly considered warning signs in a resume or interview:

- Candidate denigrates a former employer or is obviously angry about his prior
employment. Habitual malcontents can be poisonous in an organization.

- Candidate can't isolate specific work achievements and has no verifiable
references. Such a candidate's credentials are suspect.

- Candidate is late for more than one interview or is less than courteous to
the employers staff either on the phone or in person. This is nearly always a
death knell for a candidate.

- Candidate didn't learn much or understand the previous employers business. A
sure sign he or she will behave the same in the new job.

- Candidate must travel a surprisingly long distance to the job or seems
surprisingly overqualified. This raises issues of underlying problems, social
or psychological impediments to more appropriate work situations.

- Candidate takes too long to consider an offer. A sign the employer isn't the
candidate's first choice.

"Few of these red flags are in and of themselves reason for an interviewer to turn a candidate down," said Salikof, "but all of them are cause for the interviewer to probe more deeply and proceed cautiously. If a candidate can avoid running afoul of these red flag behaviors by accident, his or her chances of making it to the finish line are greatly enhanced."

Management Recruiters International, Inc. (www.BrilliantPeople.com), is the world's largest search and recruitment organization with more than 1,000 offices worldwide. Based in Cleveland, MRI has system-wide billings of $700 million and places 45,000 people in jobs annually. MRI is a subsidiary of Philadelphia-based CDI Corp. (www.cdicorp.com), a global top 10 provider of staffing and outsourcing services. In 2000, CDI had revenues of more than $1.7 billion and nearly 100,000 people worked on company assignments.