In June, on a recruiting engagement, we received 26 resumes and forwarded 9 to the client before scheduling interviews. That same afternoon, we withdrew 3 of them.
None of them failed on technical grounds — all three matched the required stack. The reasons went in a note attached to each, one sentence apiece:
One listed three "full-time" projects whose dates overlapped pairwise, the longest stretch overlapping by 5 months. When we asked, the candidate said part-time and contract work were mixed in — but every entry was labeled "full-time." That doesn't need an interview; it needs a corrected resume.
One turned "participated in" into "independently owned," using "I led" four times in a single project description. We didn't investigate; we just noted that people who genuinely lead rarely write it that way.
And one listed architect as the desired role, while the JD clearly said on-site operations. Possibly a fine engineer — but not for this job.
A colleague asked whether withdrawing them made us look unreliable after having recommended them. I see it the other way: the client pays us to screen; forwarding candidates we already doubt would be the truly unreliable move.
The day we withdrew them, the client replied "understood" and asked nothing more. Later, when their HR screened resumes themselves, they adopted those three reasons as checklist items — and added one of their own: "do the project dates add up?"
The engagement ended with 2 hires, neither from those 3. Of the original 9, 6 remained and 5 were interviewed.
What we hand a client has never been "the people who passed" — it's "why these 6 made the cut."
