Everyone's using AI to screen resumes. And they're all missing the same thing: the best candidates don't have perfect resumes.
The AI screening trap
You feed ChatGPT your job description. It spits out keywords. Your ATS filters for those keywords. Congratulations, you just filtered out:
- Career changers with transferable skills
- Self-taught developers who ship real products
- People who solve problems instead of collecting certifications
Meanwhile, the keyword-optimizers sail through. You know the type. They list every framework ever created but can't debug a simple error.
What actually works
Forget the resume. Look at the work.
1. Give them a real problem
Not LeetCode. Not trivia. A real problem your team faced last month. See how they think, not what they memorized.
2. Check their GitHub (properly)
Don't count commits. Look for:
- Do they finish projects?
- Can they explain their code?
- Do they help others?
3. Talk to them like a human
Skip "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" Ask about the hardest bug they've fixed. The feature they're most proud of. The time they disagreed with their team.
The $10K difference
Traditional recruiters charge $50K to run the same keyword searches you're already doing. They're using the same AI tools, missing the same great candidates.
We do it differently. We actually look at the work. We talk to people. We find the builders, not the keyword-stuffers.
$10K flat. Any role. Real candidates who can actually do the job.