Every week, resumes come through our portal that might not survive a typical automated screen.

Some are formatted the way resumes were formatted fifteen years ago. Others list duties and nothing else. And some leave out the keywords a hiring system looks for, or describe the number of years of monitoring so loosely that nobody could count them. On paper, they look like long shots.

But a large percentage of these applicants turn out to be qualified. In fact, some turn out to be exactly the CRA a client has been waiting for.

That is why our firm puts human eyes on every applicant who comes through our portal. It is a deliberate choice. And no, I am not stating that we don’t use AI. We do. It improves our efficiency and drives a consistent outcome. But when it comes to the initial review of an applicant’s resume, my human team members do that first review. And it has taught us something that shapes how we screen every resume: the clunky, clumsy resume is often the one that represents the real person.

Why Clunky Resumes Deserve a Look

Many of the strongest CRAs in our industry have spent years doing excellent work and very little time looking for jobs. Some of these high-quality professionals haven’t written a resume in a decade. They are great monitors…but they are not resume writers.

Nobody taught them how an applicant tracking system or an AI screening tool reads an application. They don’t know they are supposed to mirror the exact keywords in a posting. And they certainly don’t know that today’s hiring teams expect proof in an experience section instead of a list of duties. Instead, they describe their work the way they were taught to, years ago, by listing their ‘responsible for’ tasks.

Hiring teams can lose sight of that. An automated resume screening process that rejects applicants for missing keywords or unconventional formatting doesn’t measure monitoring skill. It measures resume-writing skill, and those are two very different things.

Meanwhile, a polished resume is easier to come by than ever. In our own screening, roughly 60% of CRA applicants have falsified all or part of their qualifications, and about 20% are AI-generated ghost candidates who don’t exist at all. Many of those CRA resumes are beautifully written. I wrote about how to spot a fake LinkedIn profile in an earlier post, and the same lesson applies to resumes: polish isn’t proof.

How We Screen: Yes, Maybe, and No

Our firm leans into AI in a lot of ways. It helps us work consistently and efficiently, and I would never tell a hiring team to avoid it. But before anyone is ruled out, a person on our team reviews the application. Every applicant lands in one of three categories.

The no’s don’t meet the minimum qualifications for the role. Our typical model is to respond to them and explain why we aren’t moving forward, unless

• the applicant is egregiously outside of the qualifications (wrong country, wrong industry), or
• doesn’t have a supporting digital footprint, or
• has one or more fraudulence flags, or
• applies to nearly every role we post even thought we have told them they are underqualified.

A short, clear reason is a courtesy that people remember.

The maybes are the applicants whose resumes don’t make their qualifications clear. When the resumes look like the owner might have the credentials and qualifications we are looking for, we respond with questions. And often, this is where we find our gold.

The yeses appear to meet every qualification. You would think they are the easy ones. Ah…but they aren’t. I am afraid of the ‘perfect’ resumes. They also get questions, for reasons I explain below.

What We Ask the Maybes

A maybe usually comes down to something the resume doesn’t make clear. These are some of the most common, and the questions we ask about them.

The years of monitoring are unclear.

A resume might blend monitoring with other responsibilities, such as in-house study support or lead work, so it is hard to tell how much of the person’s time was spent monitoring. We ask how many years they have spent conducting field monitoring, and in what kinds of studies.

The company where the applicant gained their CRA experience doesn’t look like a sponsor or a CRO.

Some companies run clinical trials in one small division while the rest of the business does something else entirely. For example, years ago, we supported a company that makes a wide range of consumer products, but it had one small division that conducted clinical research. A resume that lists a company like that can look unrelated to clinical research at first glance. But you can’t assume. You have to dig. When this type of scenario happens, we research the company while also asking the candidate for the details. We then compare what we found with what the candidate tells us to ensure there is an alignment regarding a potential clinical research division and the studies the person supported while working there.

The title doesn’t match the work.

Companies call the CRA role by dozens of different titles. We look at the company (Sponsor or CRO or something adjacent), ask what the person did day to day, and how their role fit within the study team.

The experience lacks detail.

A resume made of duties tells us what the job required…what the candidate was responsible for. We ask about the phases, therapeutic areas, number of sites, and systems the person worked with.

When we ask questions, a lot of maybes come back with rich, specific detail about experience that fits the role. The proof was there all along. It just wasn’t on the page.

Even the Yeses Get Questions

A resume that looks perfect deserves the same questions as one that looks clumsy. Our industry is full of buttoned-up resumes, but a buttoned-up resume only tells you the person has a well-written resume. It doesn’t tell you they are a strong professional. It could belong to a CRA with years of excellent work. But it could also belong to an AI ghost candidate, or to someone who bought a polished resume to represent experience they don’t have.

The early conversations in your process are where you find out which one you have. Ask the yes candidates for the same specifics you would ask a maybe, and listen for the detail that only real experience provides.

Candidate Experience Is Part of Your Reputation

How an application is handled tells a candidate a lot about a company. When a human sourcer or recruiter reviews their application and resume, and then reaches out with thoughtful questions, a candidate sees a company that values people. But, when an application disappears into an automated rejection, the candidate draws conclusions about the company’s culture from that, too.

Those conclusions travel. Experienced CRAs talk to each other, and the first impression your process creates becomes part of how your company is known in the industry. A hiring team works hard to attract high-quality candidates. A screening process that rejects them before a human ever sees their application works against that effort.

Finding the Balance

None of this means choosing between people and AI. It means using each one where it works best.

• Let automation handle what it does well, such as confirming clear minimum qualifications, organizing applications, and keeping your process consistent.
• Put human eyes on applicants before they are ruled out, especially when a resume is unclear rather than clearly unqualified.
• Ask questions of the maybes, because a large share of them may be qualified candidates who simply aren’t resume writers.
• Ask questions of the yeses too, because polish isn’t proof.

In a Nutshell

Resume screening works best when it looks for the person behind the resume, not just the resume itself. Many excellent CRAs write clunky, clumsy resumes because they have spent their careers monitoring, not job hunting. Automated screening can rule them out before anyone sees what they offer, while a polished resume can sail through and still belong to a fraud.

Sort applicants into yes, maybe, and no. Respond to the no’s when you can. Ask the maybes what their resumes leave out, and ask the yeses to prove what their resumes claim. The maybe pile is where a lot of your best candidates are waiting.

As always, let me know how I can help.