An article over at Personal Branding Blog talks about predicting the end of the resume. This is a topic near and dear to our hearts.
Dan Schawbel brings up some interesting thoughts on why resumes are not nearly as useful when compared to newer ways to promote yourself. He then asks, when will resumes become obsolete?
“A resume, just like a press release, is what people have been used to receiving, viewing and analyzing for years, yet now, with the advent of social technologies, they’ve become less and less relevant to our global society.”
Well, our prediction is that the original concept of a resume will never die. Like we talk about in Your Personal Brand, a resume is necessary.
Look at the fundamental parameter of a resume: historically, they were one page in length. Slowly over the past three decades, they increased to two pages. Sometime in the mid 90s, people started to push past that two page restriction. I know, I have received hundreds of resumes in this decade that are more than five, if not 10 pages in length. (Thanks, :/ monster.com)
Why is that? It’s because resumes don’t give a complete picture of who you are. People find that the only tool they have is a resume so they cram as much as they can into it. Too much information renders it useless. For my candidate searches, it ends up just being a gigantic business card with the number to call to schedule interviews.
Resumes are like the basic questionnaire for that dating site that kinda, sorta works. They are like the specifications on the side of the computer box or the ingredients list on a box of cereal. It tells the reader, precisely and concisely, is this person in the same realm as our job position? Just as an ingredients list doesn’t tell you how that cereal tastes, a resume doesn’t give you a feel for the true candidate behind the black, serif font. But it is completely necessary to have.
You simply can’t make a traditional resume more than it is. This is precisely why the concept of a resume is morphing into something more dynamic
Dan, nails it with:
“The fact that resumes need to be supported by an interview, a cover letter, references and other documents tells you that hiring managers use them primarily to sort through qualified and unqualified candidates only. They aren’t decision making documents, which is a big opportunity for the next generation resume to fix that.”
I would only say that they aren’t “HIRING DECISION” documents. But they are making an initial decision based on a resume. What people need is a way for them to get further through the hiring process, further in the door, before that first interview.
About the author
Mike Wille - I'm the head techie here with a passion and hunger for all things digital. I got into programming because I love to create and couldn't cut a straight line in wood shop.