Yesterday we introduced the serial resume submitter. We all know the type and feel the crushing weight of the ensuing resume overload. They are the ones uploading their resumes on the job boards, to recruiter email addresses and to corporate applicant tracking systems for every single position that merely looks interesting. And they are vastly underqualified. And we as an industry are enabling this behavior.

We need to find a better way, but it is not in the current tools of the trade. A startling fact is that the solution is elegantly simple; companies need to scrap job descriptions. These artifacts obscure what organizations truly need from workers and for those workers to succeed. The reason is that job descriptions do not provide information on the skills required to achieve the tasks and goals inherent in the role. The connection between a job and what an organization is attemping to accomplish are completely divorced. A better and more informed approach would be to develop position profiles that are tied back to corporate goals and define specifically the necessary skills required for the position.

On the flip side, job boards, recruiters and hiring managers need to stop the madness. They need to implement better automated filters upfront in order to assess in detail the candidates’ skills before they even get permission to hit the “submit resume” button. If candidates are truly interested in the position, they will not mind having to do the upfront work to validate they have the requisite skills needed. The result: companies will have less resumes, but more qualified candidates to evaluate through the rest of the hiring process.