Every once in a while an article comes along that exactly hits the mark with your current thinking.  This happened to me this week when I read a reprint of a blog post by Mike Michalowicz (the famous toilet paper entrepreneur) that appeared in the Wall Street Journal.  The title in the WSJ guest column was “Resume Overload? A Shortcut to Spot Best Hires.” The actual blog post title was much more direct and appropriate “Swamped With Tons Of Crappy Resumes? Never Again!”

Mike talked about his ability to filter out the irrelevant using a technique he called the “Quick Qualifier.”  Simply put, he ads the following sentence about three-quarters of the way down in the ad,


“To prove that you’re a meticulous reader, you have to include the following sentence when you send your resume: ‘It is with my utmost respect I hereto surrender my curriculum vitae for your consideration.’”

He only looks at resumes that contain that sentence and this helps to filter out about 80% of the irrelevant applications.  This saves him time, effort and focuses his attention on the relevant.

This kind of home grown solution indicates the size of the problem at hand and demonstrates Mike’s creativity.  StrictlyTalent and our first online community StrictlyExecs has been designed from the ground up to formalize these homemade solutions and provide a system where the filtering is automatic and all of us can enjoy the same results.  Eliminating the irrelevant so you can focus on the relevant is what we are all about and our goal is to provide that value to both quality talent and great career opportunities.

Mike has used this method dozens of times and he admits that it has rarely failed to select the best qualified people for the job.  Now if I could only get Mike to write an article how hiring the right talent is a process and not a post, I would be in hog heaven.

Anyway, I hope you take the chance to read Mike’s full article and think about the message hidden behind his cleverness.