Dr John Sullivan Talent Management Thought Leadership

Ignore spammed resumes; focus on highly interested candidates.

Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for 75% of today’s received resumes to come from individuals who aren’t even slightly interested in your company.

In fact, other than its name, many of these spam applicants may literally know nothing else about your company. And that’s a problem, because smart hiring managers shouldn’t be wasting time on these disinterested applicants.

Instead, they should be focusing on top applicants who are so good at what they do that they can literally work almost anywhere. As a result, after they’ve completed their thorough company research, they are only interested in a handful of companies that they now know will be a perfect fit with their skills and interests. So, your job is to identify those applicants with the strongest interest in your specific company.

Fortunately, there are multiple indicators that can help a recruiter or hiring manager identify their “perfect fit” candidates who are clearly interested in working at your company. I have found that this best identification approach only requires that you put together a checklist of the many behaviors and actions that should be observed to identify which of your candidates are the most committed to working at your company.

Typical indicators of a candidate’s high level of interest and commitment include personalized communications and cover letters, being highly responsive and on time, and asking in-depth questions about the company during their interviews.

The goal of the remainder of this article is to provide hiring managers and recruiters with a basic checklist that they can use to quickly assess and then prioritize the qualified candidates who have the highest level of interest and commitment to working for your company.

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A Checklist – Indicators That A Candidate Has A Strong Interest In Working For Your Company

The strongest indicators that a candidate has a high level of commitment to working at your company can be broken into six categories. Below you will find each of these indicator factors slotted into its appropriate checklist category. 

Category 1 – How they applied – how the candidate applied to your job is often the first indicator of a deep interest in working at your company. 

• The strongest indicator in this category is that the applicant was an employee referral. Which means that they knew someone at the company who likely educated them about your company’s strong points. 
• Their resume was customized so that it clearly fit the job requirements. 
• Did the candidate apply on your website (as opposed to a large job board) increase the odds that this candidate had a specific interest in your company? 
• You can assume the same high level of interest in the unusual case when their resume was sent directly to a named hiring manager. 
• Being a walk-in candidate would also likely indicate that the applicant already knows something about your company. 
• BTW, resumes that were obviously written and/or submitted by an AI agent should never be classified as coming from a highly committed candidate.

Category 2 – Additional ties to your company – the fact that an applicant has current or past ties to your company is another indicator of their interest in working for you. 

• The strongest long-term indicator is the fact that they worked here previously and that they want to return. 
• The next strongest indicator is that they turned down one of your job offers in the past.
• Even though they were previously rejected as an applicant, they remain interested. 
• Being a past or current customer would also indicate that they have a strong interest in or commitment to the company. 
• The fact that one of the candidate’s references revealed their strong interest in your company should also be considered.

Category 3 – Personalization – whenever a candidate takes the time to personalize a document or communication, taking that extra time should be considered an indication of interest. 

• The first personalized indicator is often the fact that if they sent a cover letter, it was personalized to the company and/or the hiring manager. 
• You should assign points when an applicant initiates communication, personalized to the name of the company employee who will be receiving it. Because personalized communications and follow-up notes take a great deal of time and effort. They should also be counted as an indication of a candidate’s interest in your company. 

Category 4 – Candidate responsiveness – candidates who are deeply interested and/or committed to working for your company will be exceptionally responsive.

• Assume there is a deep interest whenever a candidate is noticeably fast in responding to your information requests or calls. 
• Assume the same when a candidate responds quickly to every request for a meeting or call.
• Rate the candidate as highly interested if they consistently remain excited and enthusiastic throughout your arduous hiring process.

Category 5 – Company research – as mentioned previously, your top candidates will do extensive research on your company before they decide to apply to it. 

• Rate a candidate as deeply interested if, throughout your interactions with top candidates. They show that they are highly familiar with your managers and executives, your products, your customers, your competitors, your company’s goals and its future directions. 
• Rate a candidate higher when, during the interview, the candidate’s answers reveal a deep current knowledge of the company and its operations.

Category 6 – Interview behaviors – whether they are in person or online, interviews are often the best situation for rating the level of each candidate’s interest and commitment. 

• Rate them highly when they are asked why they want to work at your company; they provide only business reasons (and not money or benefits). 
• Add major points when they come prepared for each interview with a set of highly insightful questions. 
• Consider them committed when they consistently come early for their interviews and/or they take one of the earliest available interview slots. 
• Consider it a positive when they don’t cancel any interviews and when they take the time to dress appropriately. 
• Consider the candidate to be fully committed when they have been consistently courteous to your support staff outside of their interviews.

Final Thoughts

In both good and bad times, I have found that recruiters are universally looking for better ways to screen for the best candidates. While quickly screening out those who have no chance of being hired. In my view, every recruiter should welcome this checklist of factors that identify the candidates most committed to working at your company.

Fortunately, I have found that directly assessing each candidate’s interest and commitment levels is one of the easiest and most accurate ways to separate candidates. As an extra bonus, realize that the candidates who have high interest, preparation, and commitment levels consistently end up being top-performing and committed new hires. 

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Note for the reader

This is the latest article from Dr. Sullivan, who was called “the Michael Jordan of Hiring” by Fast Company.

Please help spread his ideas by sharing this with your team/network and posting it on your favorite social media.

By Dr John Sullivan – This article first appeared in the 7/14/26 issue of Aggressive Talent Management.