This Firm Wants You to Stop Wasting Time Screening Resumes

The job market has shifted significantly over the years, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the application process. While the internet has created more access to job applications and applicants, resumes are still the primary means for most companies to recruit talent, even though they aren’t great predictors of who will find success in a given role. This is why a newly-launched Boulder firm is calling for employers to eliminate resumes and make this process more functional for the modern job market.

“There’s a ton of pent up frustration from employers with the recruiting process in general, especially with resumes,” says Charles Causey, the founder and CEO of Matchstik, a new Boulder recruiting firm and website for matching job seekers and employers. “The need for employers to find, engage and keep great talent is at an all-time high, so the timing couldn’t be better for employers to try supplementing their traditional sourcing methods with a new method.”

Matchstik launched its website service for both job seekers and employers earlier this year. Its method focuses on three areas that it believes will more accurately predict a candidate's likelihood for success in a given role: natural skills, strengths and retention. This method is also the reason for the company’s name: “We match job seekers and employers in a very unique way — in a way that ignites employee engagement, productivity and retention,” says Causey.

Employers can sign up for a subscription from Matchstik and list job roles on the site, similar to other job boards. Where it differentiates, Causey says, is by finding employers candidates that are aligned based on natural strengths and actual skills. Job seekers that are not qualified by these metrics will not be shown to the employer.

Matchstik seeks to help employers improve their hiring practices, not only by eliminating the use of resumes, but by converting and rewriting job descriptions to fit their own model that focuses on skills and strengths rather than degrees and years of experience.

“Traditional job descriptions disincentivize a lot of great people—namely women and minority groups and often veterans or military spouses as well—from applying to jobs that they could likely be great at,” says Causey.

Job seekers, on the other hand, use Matchstik by creating a profile on the website (free of cost) and in return receive a strengths report (ran by Matchstik) and personally curated job invitations. These seekers will only see job posting that they’re pre-qualified for based on their strengths.

Going forward, as the company makes more successful matches, it hopes to launch a nonprofit dedicated to studying the correlations between sourcing and hiring based on its method and the resulting levels of employee engagement, retention and productivity.

“So much of the traditional hiring process is outdated and based on gut feel, and we want to help scientifically improve how hiring is performed,” says Causey.