700+ resumes to review. I’d love to read each one in detail, along with the portfolio & case studies. However, if I spent 20 minutes on each, that’s over 200 hours reviewing. It’s just not going to happen.

Here’s the first two steps I take to get the list down to something manageable.

1. First, I review basic work history. For a senior level role, there should be at least a bit of time in previous roles. No related titles, no timeframe = not moving forward. Make it easy for me to see this, and I’ll go to the next step.
2. Portfolio review. For us, there’s a field on the application for a link, but I’ll look in the resume too. We also ask for the password. If one is required but not provided, that can sometimes be a blocker. When reviewing the portfolio, although a case study format is common, it’s not required. I don’t care if I’m looking at a website, PDF, Figma link or something similar. I care less about the tool, and more about the presentation and story. I’ll be quickly trying to learn: What’s the problem? What was the applicant’s role? What was the high level process? What are the results?

That may not seem like a lot, but that reduces the list by at least 50%.