A Brave New Resume

March 24, 2009 by Michael Marlatt · 8 Comments 





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.

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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.

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