All CFOs, Controllers, VP Finance and Financial Directors, especially in small businesses, are involved in recruiting process. Most of them don't have in-house recruiters and nowadays not too many businesses can afford $25,000-$30,000 headhunters fees. So, with hiring on one side and testing the market (or in the current economy actively looking) for themselves on the other (plus payroll, benefits, etc. management), their involvement with HR is pretty significant.
However, because they don't work for businesses with thousands of employees and are not professional recruiters, small and mid-size financial execs are not necessarily up to date on the talent-searching technology. While going through hiring process they are still printing resumes, looking through them manually … – you know the process. And when the tables turn around and some of these execs are forced to search for new employment themselves, they expect their resumes to receive the same treatment even if they apply for a job in a larger company with its own in-house HR department or reply to a recruitment agency's (such as Robert Half, Michael Page, Source Associates, Forum Group, etc.) ad.
How could they possibly know, especially if they have been off the market themselves for several years, that today large HR department and recruitment agencies work with automated Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) – software that in its sophistication goes beyond database matching and usually employs cutting edge data-warehousing technologies?
I know plenty of financial execs who are so proud (rightfully so) of their accomplishments they don't even bother adapting their resumes to the nuances of advertised job requirements and keep sending them out "as is" regardless of the recipients specifications.
Please, do yourself a favor and read this recent article from TheLadders The 24-Step Modern Resume. Not only it is incredibly valuable on its own (an eye-opener for uninitiated, really), but in the text you will find links leading to further details and related subjects.
I also highly recommend The HR Capitalist blog. It will provide members of financial executive talent brigade with an opportunity to learn what the other side – the hiring professionals – think. I found particularly fascinating the insights into Social Recruiting and the important place it occupies in today's hiring in Why Social Recruiting Isn't About Having a Corporate Twitter Account.
The Frustrated CFO 