The Sterling Family Law Show

The 4-Step Law Firm Resume Screening Process That Filters 50% of Applicants Fast - #187

• Jeff Sterling Hughes

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Stop drowning in 200+ applications. This framework defines your criteria, leverages AI, and gets your team screening without you.


Here's the 4-step system we built to filter 50% of applicants quickly. We break down the exact law firm hiring process we use: criteria definition, tech filtering, red flag hunting, and strategic reference checks. 


We even talk through using ChatGPT as your applicant tracking system if you don't have one yet. Plus, I dropped my reference check strategy that completely changed how we vet candidates. Real recruitment tips that scale.


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📝 Schedule a FREE Family Law Firm Audit: https://rocketclicks.com/schedule-a-family-law-quick-audit/ 


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📄 CHAPTERS  


0:00 - Law Firm Resume Screening: Stop Wandering Into the Process 

1:49 - Define Your Screening Criteria Before a Single Application Hits 

2:26 - The 50% Rule: Eliminating Applicants Who Don't Pass the Sniff Test 

3:38 - The Apprenticeship Square: Training Your Team to Screen for You 

5:10 - Using AI and Applicant Tracking Systems to Batch Process 

6:20 - How to Train a ChatGPT Agent When You Don't Have Full ATS 

17:25 - Resume Red Flags: Job Hopping, Bad Formatting, and Applying Up 

19:25 - The Reference Hack: Asking for Specific Supervisors by Name 

21:58 - Disqualify Don't Qualify: The Mindset Shift That Saves Hours


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SPEAKER_03:

Leverage technology to find efficiencies in the front end of the process so that you can spend the time going through and doing what actually matters so that you make sure you're finding a great fit. Welcome back to the Sterling Family Law Show, the podcast designed to help family law attorneys build the firm of their dreams. I'm your host, Sather Dolph. I'm also the CEO of our family law firm only marketing agency called Rocket Clicks, that was actually born out of our own family law firm, Sterling Lawyers, that has grown to over 27 attorneys. Today we are continuing our series on hiring. We're focusing on resume screening. We have our co-host, uh Anthony Carls, who's also the co-founder of Sterling Lawyers, as well as our head of operations, JP Vanderlenen, with us to talk through best practices when it comes to sifting through and reading all of those resumes that you get when you post a new job. All right, gentlemen, we are back continuing our hiring series. And what we know is that there are a million and one ways to submit your application for a job across the internet, and that we are all inundated with hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes within our firms and our businesses. And so today we want to talk through the best practices for screening resumes and ensuring that you have the right talent. JP, we have a nice list of things that we're gonna review today. The first one being the screening criteria. How are we going to evaluate the resumes that are coming in? Tell us about uh what we do uh at our law firm as well as here at RocketClicks.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so the the first thing that I'll say is what we're not gonna do is we're not just gonna throw a job post up and then have resumes start coming in and go, I don't know, who do we like? Who's whose font do we like? What's the layout? Like we're we're not gonna do that. We're not just gonna wander in. We're gonna set a plan up front. What are we looking for? What's most important to us? What do we need to screen out and not screen out? And it seems simple, but literally just defining what success criteria are for someone's application is is incredibly important. Um, and so you need to know specifically based on the role you're recruiting for, like what are the non-negotiables? Because this is what you should do. This first round, this resume screening, this is all about getting rid of the 50% or so of applicants who come in who just don't pass the SNF test. Like you don't even want to waste time going further and going to the next steps. You just want to cut them out here. Um, and so uh Tony, I know at the law firm we've got a bunch of different roles that we recruit for. And and uh who's typically involved in that process with uh with setting the tone for this?

SPEAKER_02:

So uh depends on the role, but we typically like to work with uh kind of the managers of the position. So like when we built this out for attorneys, uh, we're very much involving our two managing partners there in terms of how they're how they're screening these people at the front end, um determining what the criteria is so our HR team can execute that well. Same thing on the paralegal front. So our our lead paralegal, she's the one that helps helps draft that. Sales side, same, same story. And really it's what are we what are we looking for? And it's more of an educational session with that HR person. We're really trying to write down here's exactly what we're looking for. Uh if it's new, new to that individual, whether it, you know, whether it is an actual HR journalist or recruiter, or you're just using an admin, like what I would recommend doing is taking a batch of resumes and going through it with that person, doing a live recording so it's really clear, like this one's good. Oh, did you see, do you see this? This is something that I'll try to avoid. Or here's some words that are used that typically indicate that they're applying up for a job and they're not actually at the level of the role we're trying to hire for. So, like, there's a whole bunch of different things that you can do as a business owner to sit down so that you don't have to do all the resume screening and teach that person that is doing it for you what to look for and how to do that. And I would just, you know, run them through an apprenticeship square, show them how to do it, have them help you do it, uh have you know, or have them watch you do it, have them help you do it, you help them do it, um, and then you watch them do it. Just kind of like let them go through that process and they'll they'll really quickly uh if you go through 20 resumes, they're they'll probably have 80 to 90 percent of what you're looking for dialed in pretty quick, but you just put that upfront investment in.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, to me it sounds like it's taking the time on the front end to create a very clear picture of who's the ideal candidate, what qualifications do they have, what are we looking for specifically on these resumes so that we can sift through them quicker. Is that right? Yeah, 100%. All right. And uh we've been known to find a process or build a tool for this. Yeah, our second point is using technology to filter out these resumes. Uh, tell us more about that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so uh obviously a lot of the ATSs that are out there, applicant tracking systems today have have started to implement AI or other tools in that'll help you with this resume screening. And so again, if you've defined your criteria well, um you can batch process a lot of this and get support from technology to quickly identify resumes that have red flags on them or don't have key items that you're looking for, whether it's experience, uh, education, um, previous role titles. There's all kinds of things you can look for on there. Um, but really the point here is just to move through the stage as quickly as possible. Now, I will say that as you're rolling this out, spend time validating the technology. So make sure that you're not missing out on good potential candidates because the AI is learning or because you didn't put a criterion correctly. So definitely validate while you're getting it in place. But once it's up and running, it can certainly help your team screen through faster.

SPEAKER_03:

Any any specific technology or ATS we prefer?

SPEAKER_02:

Uh I I would say most of our firms that we're going to be working with, they probably don't have a full ATS system yet. So I would really uh I'd really encourage our listeners who don't have one to to leverage something like ChatGPT and train an agent to screen these, to screen the resumes for you. Uh, because the more quickly you can go through them and identify for you know chat GPT, and we've built several several agents like this for leveraging internally. You just dump a resume right in right in there, and then it will score it for you. And as long as you understand like how the scoring system works that you've set up, it's gonna do a lot of the heavy lifting. And then you'll have your edge cases that are like, you know, if you're doing it on a scale of one to ten, your edge cases would probably be sixes and sevens. You're gonna want to manually review those, and that's how you're gonna want to move these things forward. Um so just like leveraging leveraging tech technology to identify the the scoring, uh, I think would be a good good place to start. And it's it's as simple as just using chat GPT um and taking your resumes and dumping them in there.

SPEAKER_03:

What kind of efficiencies are we talking about here? Like if you if you get a thousand resumes and you run them through this process, are you then reviewing like you know, 30? Like how how how much efficiency does leveraging technology really give you?

SPEAKER_02:

I I would say that your ability to screen through a large volume of applications, call it let's just use the sample size of 100. You could screen 100 resumes easily in 30 minutes and get that down to probably the 10 to 15 that actually meet your criteria. So it'll go really fast. You have to do the work up front. And I what I would you know, I'd encourage people to leverage upwork and write out exactly what you're looking for so that you can work with someone that may maybe you don't know how to write write chat agents right now. So like leverage someone upwork. There's a lot of people that do this, it's not super expensive. You can very easily access it. All you need is a chat GPT account, create an agent, and then you're just gonna you're gonna test and validate. So you're gonna dump a bunch of resumes in, see how that scores it, give it a good one, give it a bad one, see how it, see how it scores it, and then then start utilizing testing and iterating it for improvement. So it doesn't have to be complicated. Um, I would that's what I would say. This is very accessible to anybody that knows how to use a computer.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, and those are real efficiency gains, right? That's gonna really help you find the right candidate quickly.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh if you think about screening a hundred resumes manually, each one you yeah, each one you're probably looking at for, you know, best case scenario, probably three minutes. So you know that's that's 300 minutes, that's a couple hours. And like you got a lot of things to do, versus like let's dump them in, let's review them, see if they meet our criteria, the experience that we're looking for, and then use your three hours to do the follow-up.

SPEAKER_03:

Start getting these scheduled so that you can get get that position built. Do you want to grow your law firm but you can't predict next month's revenue? Do you hire an attorney without knowing if you can actually afford it? I hear you. We have a planning system that forces us to focus. It's built on these three key principles. We are teaching this entire framework in a free 45-minute webinar called the 2026 Annual Planning Live. Let's make next year the one that actually changes everything. You mentioned experience. That's that's our next point. Uh, and thinking about, you know, if you're if you're new to the job force, you're adding everything that you've ever done on your resume to try and add credibility. If you've been in the job force a long time, maybe it's not as bad, but focusing on the relevant experience has got to be key here, right, JP?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So obviously there's gonna be some things that depending on the role, you know, whether you're hiring for an attorney or a paralegal legal assistant, you may have different requirements in terms of, you know, education and training and licensure and things of that nature. But when it comes down to it, there's no substitute for being in the work, uh, the exponential benefits you have from having somebody who's, you know, like you said, early in their career a year in versus three years versus five years. Um, you get a lot of those, those early gains. And so understanding like what someone's actual experience has been, um, not just in terms of total time spent, but in the specific work that they were doing during that time. What is the overlap? Have they been in family law for that whole three years? Or did they, did they start uh at a more general multi-practice firm and they kind of like only got to family law in the last six months? Um, so understanding like who are you actually bringing in and talking to and like how closely does their actual lived experience uh correlate to what you're gonna be asking them to do in the role in your firm ongoing?

SPEAKER_02:

And I and like you can also use the resume to um to vet their likelihood of, you know, in previous conversations we've talked about is this someone that's gonna be like a uh uh consult room revenue driver, or is this someone that's gonna be more of a kind of a grinder that's gonna get a bunch of cases done? Like what type of lawyer are is this gonna be? Um and if you just think about it from a presentation perspective, if the resume is pretty bland, boring, and not like uh not compelling, it's probably a good indicator for you that they may lean on their competence in the consultation room and people might lose them, um, which is typically gonna result in lower closing rates because when people are confused, they can't make a decision versus someone that can cle uh uh communicate succinctly and clearly and compellingly, they're probably gonna do really well in the consultation room. So, like you're you're gonna want to very much look for what are you know what you're looking for, because that's gonna dictate a lot of like A, how you use resume filters like we talked about above, but B, what you're looking for in the resume. So, like you if you might want a really boring resume because it is something that is that's actually gonna be that might be a really good indicator that this person's been in market, they understand their stuff, they're not trying to be overly salesy, and like what you need is someone that's gonna be a grinder for your firm. Fantastic. That's probably a good fit. So I think you're like looking at the meta of the resume as well as like the actual lived experience, like JP said, is important.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I think that touches on um our next point as it relates to looking at career growth. And that's something that we really pay attention to, right? Are these individuals go-getters? Are they consistently getting promoted or you know, uh their next job being a higher position than their current job? Or have they been in the current job for a long time, which shows consistency and loyalty? How do uh how do you think about that, JP?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think there's a couple of things you hit on there that are really important. One is longevity with a specific firm over time. Uh, so you do want to, obviously, there's a little bit of grading that happens here based on how early or late in their career the applicant is. Early career folks do tend to be a little bit more mobile as they're trying to trying to move. Uh, but in general, you're looking for someone who's who's been within a single environment for a long period of time uh because that shows loyalty, then that person's probably gonna be with you for a long time. And you know, there's nothing worse than like spending all that time investing in someone only to have them, you know, walk out the door. So you're looking for a track record that gives you clues to how they're gonna perform for you. And then, like you said, advancement. So like I don't want to see that you've been in a firm for 10 years and you haven't grown. Like that's actually kind of scary to me. I want to know like why you weren't why you weren't advancing during that process. I want you to be able to tell me about that. Um, the one other thing I'd flag here is um I always look for the gaps between roles, because that can sometimes be a place to tell a story. If consistently, when someone is leaving roles, there's a six, seven, eight month gap. I'm not talking about one time, but consistently, that's probably an indication that when they do get out into the market, the market doesn't value them particularly highly. So that's an early clue for you to say, hey, this person doesn't get snapped up really quickly versus there's no gaps here. When they when they leave a position, they are immediately in another firm, in another role because they are desired in the markets. Gives you a good sense of this person's value.

SPEAKER_03:

Really good. Uh love the idea of of leveraging kind of these preset um notions as it relates to like what we're looking for. But I think there's also a lot of like red flags on resumes. I want to dive into that topic a little bit. What have we seen that that is a huge call out that we don't want our listeners to miss?

SPEAKER_01:

I would say if you've got somebody who can't give you clear um clear wins in a role, that always gives me pause.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh, this this could show up either as qualitative or quantitative. Um I tend to skew towards quantitative. I like to see you representing with numbers how you are successful in this role. So when you talked earlier about like, is this person going to be a revenue driver for you? Well, if they tell you in their job description how much revenue it is, that's a good thing. Their heads are right versus somebody who's kind of just like these are the things I did in this role, these were my expectations. Like that doesn't tell me how you were successful in achieving something. So I'm always looking for when they describe the job, do they describe it in terms of here's how I was successful? Or do they describe it as here's what I did? Because that shows you a little bit of their their mindset.

SPEAKER_01:

Um also sometimes uh people can be, let's say, generous or liberal with their job titles versus what they actually were doing. Uh and this I do I tune in, I don't think you'll see this as much in the um in the app for actual attorneys, but I do think a lot of the uh the other roles, like there's room for someone to say that I was a senior supervisory and it's like you you had one person who reported to you and they were a 16-year-old intern. Let's chill out there. Let's not overtitle that. So look for weird mismatches of like the descriptions of what they did in the role against the job titles. That can be a place for honestly, for me, it's like just be honest. Just just say what you did. Um, because if you're gonna lie to me on your resume, you're probably gonna lie to me while you're here. Um, and so I'm I'm very much watching for those. There's probably uh some others that are they're very specific here that we could call out. Tony, if you want to talk to some of the ones that are family firm specific.

SPEAKER_03:

I'd also, Tony, I'd love to hear like the timing. When do you start to look for red flags? Is this in the screening like technology process, or is this once you've whittled it down to 10 to 15?

SPEAKER_02:

No, I would use it in that the technology process for sure. I would identify what are those specific red flags that we're looking for. Um, you know, some of those are, like JP said, depending on the role, job hopping. Um so if like we're hiring for uh someone to be on our intake team, someone that has like consistently a different job every two years, it's gonna be hard for me to be convinced that that's gonna be a high quality potential candidate. We might talk to them because they might have relevant experience, but the reality is that person is only gonna be with you for two years. That's that's what's shown on the resume. Um I think some other things that are obviously super basic that you can leverage a technology for is is there stuff that's misspelled? Is it is it formatted really poorly? So like there's some basic things that I think are important. Like did we do we just uh you know slap this together or is this act do we actually try to present ourselves in a way that's comp in somewhat in a somewhat compelling way? Um and then I I I think also the um it's probably not gonna show up on the resume, but this would be one of the screening questions, something that I dig into is really understand kind of the courtroom experience. Like what have they actually done independently? Not what were they a part of? What did they actually do independently? Because it's it's very different when you bring on an attorney that you can hand files to and that can work files really well and move things forward, versus one that might be really great at doing that in the future, but they need a lot of hand holding right now. They're gonna be essentially for the next year or two a potential drain on your on your revenue, and there's not gonna be a whole lot of um benefit to them uh on your team unless you're really good at delegation um and identification of uh good opportunities, but that is a uh that's a harder skill. Um, and sometimes it's better off where you're you're avoiding those opportunities at the front end.

SPEAKER_03:

A bonus question here: how much weight do you put on references?

SPEAKER_01:

I actually don't ask for references until I'm at the final stage of the interview process. Um, but I have kind of an interesting take on this, which is I don't just blanket ask for references. Um, my preference is to specifically tell them who I want to talk to. Uh so like I want to talk to your supervisor at the last three roles. And if you're still currently employed, you can't give me your current one. I understand that. Like, give me the three before that. And I want to talk to the person who directly managed you. I want their you know, first and last name. We're asking this during the like the interview process anyway, so it's not doing it. Information. And the reason is it's super easy to game this system and be like, I'm going to give you my best friend Joe. And like he's going to tell you that I'm great. And it's like, cool. I don't care about Joe. I want to hear from your previous supervisors. Man, I hate that I lost that person. They were so good. They were, they really contributed. They were a great part of the team. Or like, you know what? They never really showed up on time. And I was really struggling to get them involved or whatever. So like I like references. Uh, they're a lot of legwork. And so I would put them late in the process rather than this early at the resume screening stage.

SPEAKER_02:

Something that I think is a good signal is if they include references that are very relevant to their position. So like if they're an attorney that's applying for an attorney role, them giving you a bunch of references that are not attorneys in the in that field, that's probably an indication to you that they don't have connections and they may not be well well respected. And like the benefit of you know the local law community, especially in a particular area of practice like family law, it's a small community. You're gonna you're gonna know. And like people are gonna have perspectives and opinions. So if you get a resume and people like some uh well-known names are referenced as references, it's gonna be a really good indication that they're a quality candidate. So, you know, I really think um them proactively giving them to you and then them those references matching the job role, um, I think are important. So, like, you know, for me, if I was applying for a job and I used, you know, an intake person's an intake person as my reference, where it might be a quality reference, someone who's hiring me as a president, they want to know what other presidents think about me, not necessarily what my uh frontline salesperson thought of me.

SPEAKER_01:

Since we're doing since we're doing bonuses here, Tyler, I'd like to throw one more consideration out, which is um at this stage in the process, I'm actively looking for disqualifiers. I'm looking for the negatives because I cannot tell you how many times I have had someone come in who squeaked through on the resume, and then you got on the phone with them and started talking to them, and you were just blown like this person's great. They're terrible at making resumes, but they're really good at doing the work. And so, like, well, I'm not gonna hire them to build resumes, I'm gonna hire them to do the job. So um, so just be aware here, like you're not looking to qualify somebody at this stage so much as disqualify somebody. So look for the things that are the red flags, look for the things that are non-negotiables, kick people out and have conversations with the rest where you can find out like who's, you know, maybe a great interviewer uh but sucks at putting together a, you know, a one-pager of like everything about them you need to know.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, from what I'm hearing from both of you is leverage technology to find efficiencies in the front end of the process so that you can spend the time going through and doing what actually matters, so that you make sure you're finding a great fit. I still think hiring someone is so much like dating, in that you're gonna put your best shoes on and have you know all the right conversations, but then you got to get into the weeds and you share a bathroom and a toothbrush and all the things. And uh, you know, that's when the real stuff comes out. So the the more you can get to know someone on the front end, uh, the better that eventual relationship will be.

SPEAKER_02:

We we would recommend not sharing toothbrushes, by the way.

SPEAKER_03:

I agree with that totally. Yeah. To put that out there, I think that's probably not that bad. You don't do that. Love it, guys. Appreciate the time and the insights as always. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to stay tuned. We cover topics in depth. Right now, you're listening to our hiring series. We have an owner operator series where we interview law firm owners. We go deep into the weeds as it relates to marketing a law firm online. Make sure to check out these episodes and have a wonderful rest of your day.

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