A Brave New Resume
Tuesday, March 24, 2009 // 9 Comments // Blog, Recruitment, Social Media
For years people have been sounding the death knell of the resume. One of the more interesting arguments in favor of this comes from noted author Seth Godin, in his post “Why bother having a resume?” The post suggests that the resume is dead because we should all be “spectacular,” by which he means have a blog or letters of recommendation or something more to show about ourselves. Unfortunately not everyone is spectacular and I can unequivocally say that not everyone should have a blog, including many who do. But there is a core truth underlying Godin’s perspective: in a world where we are constantly creating digital footprints, the static and reductive nature of the resume is more evident than ever. Nevertheless, although it should be, the old-school resume is not dead.
Now let’s take a look at the future. Your resume is not about where you’ve worked, but rather what you’ve produced. So, for example, your Twitter tweets, blog comments, forum discussions, YouTube videos, Flickr images, Facebook status updates, LinkedIn recommendations, Amazon book reviews, and any other content you choose are all aggregated. But here’s the key: This brave new resume, the cloud resume, doesn’t include everything you generate, just the specific granular items you choose to be included. Each time you leave a digital impression you decide whether or not you want to tag it for inclusion in your cloud resume.
Of course, challenges exist with this concept. Two come immediately to mind. First off, even if the aggregation website assigns a unique identification tag to each user, how will this be implemented on individual, non-affiliated sites? Obviously you can’t just put some visible code at the end of each thing you want included. If you did, anyone could use your code and threaten the integrity of your cloud resume. Though still in its relative infancy, the answer probably lies in an implementation of a technology called OAuth. At the risk of oversimplifying, OAuth allows an aggregation site to access some, but not necessarily all, of a person’s online data.
Second, how can you package this sort of cloud resume for distribution and subsequent storage in applicant tracking systems? Let’s face it, while some might claim that social media is fast supplanting the resume as the primary currency of the employment trade, that’s just not true. So, do you just send the standard biographical data with the links? Do you convert to PDF? Neither of these options is a very satisfying solution. Our systems will need to evolve.
Challenges aside, the cloud resume solves a number of difficulties with presenting oneself in a Web 2.0 world. Imagine never having to actually sit down and ‘write’ a resume again. We’re already documenting the sort of information that goes into a resume when we create each social networking profile. More important, we’re demonstrating our career knowledge each time we generate work-related content for the web. What we need is a site that can aggregate only the content we want, as we create it. While standard work and educational history can be included if desired, the cloud resume is certainly a more holistic and dynamic way to represent ourselves.
——————————————————–
Guest post submitted by Scott Hajer.
Scott Hajer, lives in Chicago and is a Senior Recruiting Professional formerly employed by Aquent IT Solutions. He is the Chicago Coordinator for Rope with Hope, a site dedicated to “assisting job seekers in finding meaningful work…” Scott is exploring new career opportunities in the Chicago area. Click the following link to view Scott’s Linkedin profile.
Questions on the post? Please contact Scott.
Nick Reddin
March 25, 2009 at 9:57 am
Scott,
Great article on an interesting topic. While I am not ready to jump on the bandwagon yet, I like the idea of how it would simplify not only the ability to find candidates but also be found (when needed).
It is also kind of funny and I am sure you have run across this. When you contact somebody about a new opportunity and they are very interested but need to update their resume – it is such a laborious task to some that they pull out of the opportunity. Of course there is a lot that can be said of those types of candidates, but nonetheless it highlights people’s view of resume updating.
Best regards,
Nick
Christopher Young
March 26, 2009 at 10:14 am
“Tagged: Cloud Resume, OAuth, Resume, Scott Hajer, Seth Godin, Social Web”
:>)nice tag.
OAUTH
If working on this has been a helpful group.
http://groups.google.com/group/partuza?lnk=
my thought however on “the resume” it will be like the scroll for apprentices! A necessary for years to come unless policies for protection of internal needs are changes.
Maybe it will evolve into a standard microformat like hResume (LinkedIn) but not this year 2009.
For the 1.8 Federal employees often more than a simple resume is needed as mandatory for consideration.
Respectfully,
Jonathan Handler
April 10, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Scott:
This is another way of saying that everyone should have their version of an artist’s portfolio. I am sure that many people keep a physical and/or virtual file of special outputs that they have produced. Personally, I find that the advantage of a resume is that it requires people to focus on the quality of what they produce, not the quantity. Some people suggest one page versions of resumes and others suggest handbills.
Jonathan
Scott Hajer
April 15, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Nick – I was in that very situation just last week. Resumes _are_ painful to write. I guess the wisest candidates are those that update their resume every time they accomplish something. Then they can cut, mix and match their achievements on the resume when they choose to apply to a role. I generally keep a “kudos/accomplishments” file – it comes in handy when writing a resume and also at review time.
The cloud resume doesn’t necessarily eliminate this. If an accomplishment is internal, like solving a business problem, unless you provide details online there’s no way to automatically aggregate it. However, the cloud resume aggregation site could allow for one to log in and manually put accomplishments that can be mixed and matched on the chronological experience part of the resume. Or, better yet, even provide a desktop app that runs sort of like a twitter client – but private only to feed your resume. So when you want to log an achievement you just type it and hit submit.
Scott Hajer
Scott Hajer
April 15, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Jonathan –
That’s an interesting perspective – that it’s like an artist’s portfolio. I think so. I’ve never recruited one, but I’m assuming artists have always had to show what they’ve produced, to demonstrate their abilities. I certainly wouldn’t hire a graphics or advertising person based solely on his or her resume.
I agree that loading up the cloud resume with _everything_ you’ve ever done, said, or produced, would make for miserable reading. That’s the problem we have today, right? If I google a candidate, I will get everything.
On this cloud resume, as I’ve presented it, one can select just the key items or those that best represent someone’s qualifications.
Scott Hajer
Rob McIntosh
April 24, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I think that one day resumes will become irrelevant and give way to a more cohesive approach like many are suggesting but keep in mind that for this to actually happen human nature has to shift from the current approach of showing themselves in the best possible light. A.k.a – The resume is the closest thing to the perfect document that is ever written simply because people only want to show off how great they are. If we move to a more transparent approach with the aggregation of all data then people no longer have control over only showing off the perfect resume, but will be required to think very very carefully about how and when the engage publicly as it can impact their public profile/resume.
2nd point to note is that you are all thinking in a very US centric way where the is more openness to public data. Go to Europe or other counties that have incredibly stringent privacy laws around personal data, and you will find what you propose would never remotely get off the ground given it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen around perceptions of disqualification of applications due to unfair leveraging of personal data.
I like Seth and a lot of what he proposes but, I also think he sometimes needs to take his head out of the cloud from time to time (yes Michael, pun was intended)
Rob
Scott Hajer
April 27, 2009 at 6:10 pm
Rob –
Actually what I am proposing is that people can choose to have the cloud resume/aggregation site only pull in specific things. The owner of the resume is the person who tags things for inclusion. Consequently I don’t see it as a privacy issue.
Here’s a paragraph I cut from the post:
“This ability to tag content for inclusion allows someone to avoid mixing the personal and the professional, or at least deciding how much of the personal to share. One might say that all a company has to do is search the web to gather this sort of information. Maybe. But most people have multiple identities and logons, depending on the site or tool they’re using. Some people have common names and get lost in the search results. Also, when considering you for employment, generally companies don’t want to know a whole lot about your personal life. It creates messy legal issues.”
You make a very interesting point in saying “then people no longer have control over only showing off the perfect resume, but will be required to think very very carefully about how and when the engage publicly as it can impact their public profile/resume.”
I’ve often pondered this. Maybe the employers themselves will change. Maybe as this current generation of children grows up and takes the role of hiring managers, they will judge people as humans and not as the perfect specimens resumes present them to be. Whereas today’s kids are much more comfortable living their lives in public, warts and all, the people making the hiring decisions today come from a different world and that is a fundamental disconnect.
Scott Hajer