The “New Resume”

9 Responses to “The “New Resume””

1. melissa on September 28th, 2006 5:05 am

   I think it is something that we struggle with as HR professionals but also from a personal standpoint. Working profesionally since I was 22 and now here it is 12 years later I have a 4 page long resume that is nothing if not mind crushing with all the detail on it. What am I to do? If I leave something off then I could be passed over for a job because they may think I don’t have the right mix of experience. Keep everything in then I run the risk of my resume not even being seen because nobody wants to read it. The cons of having blogs and/or LinkedIn (which I am a part of) is that your are esstentially putting your personal life out there for the whole world to see, but if you don’t conform and do it, then do you also run the risk of not keeping up with everyone and again, could miss out on a job (or candidate) if you or they haven’t in a sense “linked in”? I am curious to see what others have to say.

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2. C.M. Russell on September 28th, 2006 6:00 am

   Blogs dont have to a tell-all when it comes to job hunting. You can put as little or as much information in it as you want to. Consider this blog from job seeker Carolyn Duncan. Its a brief and highly focused blog but it got her the job.

   http://secretsofthejobhunt.blogspot.com/2006/07/another-blog-leads-to-job.html

   I believe blogs are the new form of resumes for the 21st century job hunter.

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3. Tiffany on September 28th, 2006 6:32 am

   I don’t think the resume as we know it is really going to go away. The whole point of it is to be a summary of your professional background designed to convey to the hiring manager that it’s worth the time to get more information. With that purpose in mind, it’s not that the resume as a concept is the problem- the problem is that people have no idea how to read or write them.

   That said, of course the resume provides an incomplete picture. That’s why there are interviews- but it’s too easy to fake your way through an interview, so those can’t be the only way to gather information on a candidate. So all those other things you mentioned are going to increase in importance as a way to develop a fuller sense of who a candidate is.

   But the resume isn’t going to go away any more than the business card is- we like the piece of paper that summarizes relevant information far too much.

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4. JK on September 29th, 2006 6:32 am

   When I got my current job, they were impressed that I had my own resume website. Hiring managers had never seen anyone with one before, which is sort of hard to believe I think. So for my current search, I have redone my online resume website. It was a challenge because there were so few good examples to go by. There were 3 main challenges to developing it:
   1) Everything communicates so the same ridiculous level of analysis of every word usage was required for all content including a bulleted list of strengths I developed and a 2-paragraph career history. It was painstaking.
   2) It was really hard finding any good examples to emulate. Web design is much easier when you can borrow from other designs and presentation styles, but with this effort I felt like I was flying blind. I ended up changing things, soliciting feedback from a small group, then changing them back!
   3) Employers/HR types aren’t yet ready in my opinion to click links as a matter of standard practice. The existing method of resume attachment submission is so ingrained. I even had one recruiter without acrobat reader who couldn’t view a simple PDF document. Change comes slowly. Also, look at the way most large companies have outsourced their resume submission forms/upload software through their own websites to companies like Taleo. It’s pure misery and zaps the most artful and appropriate resume into a database to likely be viewed not by eyeballs but by their keyword search software!

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5. Louise Fletcher on September 29th, 2006 6:35 am

   Such an interesting question and one I struggle with every day. I’m a professional resume writer, so it’s a pretty central issue for me. The traditional resume is so limiting - back when I was in HR I used to like the convenience of a resume, but now that I work in depth with each of my clients, I see that so many great people are overlooked because their background isn’t exactly right - and yet they are amazing and would succeed at whatever they did.

   I’m trying lots of alternatives - I set up blogs for my clients, I create web portfolios, I help them with LinkedIn profiles - and all of these can help a client stand out, but I don’t see anything replacing the resume until companies undergo a dramatic shift in the way they think about recuitment.

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6. Matt Kerr on September 29th, 2006 8:36 am

   Looks like a lot of work going into XML. Check out what the HR-XML Consortium is doing:

   http://ns.hr-xml.org/2_4/HR-XML-2_4/SEP/StaffingExchangeProtocol.html

   Microsoft Corporation
   HR-XML Consortium
   ResumeMirror
   Manpower, Inc.
   Oracle
   Monster
   CareerBuilder
   Humanuo
   Volt Information Sciences
   PeopleSoft
   Robert Half International, Inc.
   milch und zucker
   Abtech Partnership;
   Swedish National Labor Market Board
   Accenture
   HR Soft

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7. Kelly on September 30th, 2006 7:23 pm

   The question should be who reads resumes. I don’t know how many interviews I have particpated as a prospective candidate for the job and I know that my resume was minimally read by the “employer”. I can tell this by the questions they ask. Also I have been interviewed by top corporations that when walking in the room I was asked for a resume as the “fill-in” guy never had a chance to see my resume. What this tells me as that they have already made a selection and to meet EEO requirements they can now check of they interviewed a American Indian professional with a master’s degree. I have been to interviews where the individual tell me about his friend……
   I like the new format where you are asked to tell the employer what you did in a real situation according to the little “storyline” they read to you. People can lie on that as well so I don’t think that is being realistic…I could go on and write a book about the HR and interviewing.
   I have also have hired people and I abide my what I can legally ask (I wish others would read it) and I am sincere and honestly want to know the individual and give them an equal opportunity. I wish I could say the same about others….

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8. FP on October 3rd, 2006 8:04 am

   The “next resume” should be as much or more content-catching than it is eye-catching. It must not disrupt or require major changes to existing processes, e.g., at job boards, employers’ employment portals, applicant tracking systems, etc. The “next resume” should result in all employers being able to easily, quickly, and accurately identify qualified candidates. It should be a more trustworthy document, and give the candidate the primary responsbility to quickly and accurately identify themselves as being qualified and worthy of serious review specific to the job they’re applying for. The “next resume” should give employers / hiring managers the ability to make more well-informed candidate selection decisions.

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9. Your HR Guy on October 4th, 2006 9:08 am

   All good comments.

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