

Why I Refuse to Use Resumes and What I Do Instead - josephwesley
https://medium.com/p/c8711736e116

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tptacek
How has plum.io worked out for you? What kinds of things does it test
candidates for? I admit, from the front page: my impression is that it's less
like Moneyball for hiring and more like Dwarf Fortress.

~~~
josephwesley
Ha, that's funny.

The best way to use the test is to screen candidates to find the top 5 or so.
Let's so you get 200 resumes. Instead of sorting through them all, you can
have the applicants take the Plum.io test. Once the results come in, you'll
have the candidates ranked from top to bottom. You don't have to make hiring
decisions based on the result, but you can use it to narrow the five or ten
you want to interview. That's the best use I've seen so far. It also helps to
weed out people that have fluff on their resume. You'll know right away how
intelligent they are from an IQ perspective and also how hard they work, in
addition to other personality traits that will be useful.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_You don 't have to make hiring decisions based on the result, but you can use
it to narrow the five or ten you want to interview._

It may or may not be wise to reject 95% of your applicants out of hand based
on a psychological test [1], but it is _certainly_ a "hiring decision". Don't
apply a selection criterion, then try to tell yourself that you didn't.

 _You 'll know right away how intelligent they are from an IQ perspective and
also how hard they work, in addition to other personality traits that will be
useful._

Yes, personality traits such as "willingness to jump through hoops, just to
land an interview with the sort of boss who will ignore one's sales pitch and
track record in favor of dubiously-relevant psychological tests." You've set
up a very effective screen for this trait.

At least you do this up-front. I had a CEO spring a psychological test on me
in a final-round senior-engineering interview, wasting more than a day of my
time, not to mention his company's time. Absurdism at its finest: You go in
prepared to talk about the business and how you might be able to use your
existing technical expertise to score short-, medium-, and long-term wins in
performance and revenue, and suddenly _your high-school guidance counselor_
shows up.

\---

[1] Ranked "top to bottom", no less. That _is_ disturbing. I would quote Mr.
Spock and say that this phrase "reflects two-dimensional thinking", but it
doesn't even get _up_ to two dimensions.

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JSeymourATL
Resumes are often flawed and imperfect, we get that.

But you might also think of the contemporary US style CV as a marketing
document. By that measure, it provides valuable insights into individual
writing, communication, and presentation skills. Intangible things we look for
in good managers.

~~~
josephwesley
I disagree. I think it teaches bad habits where you write in a "CV" style.
Instead, why not have people write a one-page document with short paragraphs
and bullet points for why they should get hired. This can include GPA,
results, and experience, but I personally just want to see it in a different
format than a dry, bullet-pointed resume.

~~~
JSeymourATL
>bullet points for why they should get hired:

The resume (CV used interchangeably) is merely a tool for guiding the
conversation on background & experience. Treating a job-seeker as a supplicant
is a turn-off to professional candidates.

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lostcolony
"or I ask for a one-page statement that uses short paragraphs and bullet
points about why they’re a good fit for the job and why I should hire them."

Sounds like a cover letter.

~~~
josephwesley
In a way, yes, but with more emphasis on pitching why you're a good fit for
the position.

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Mz
Excerpt:

 _Why do I ask for a one-page statement instead of a resume? Because I want to
mix things up a bit. I want to find out what makes the candidate stand out for
the position, and I also want to see genuine interest in the job being
advertised. What I don’t want is someone who’s spraying resumes to every
available job opening. That guy’s not going to be a good fit for what I’m
doing. But someone who’s willing to write up a half-page or one-page
explanation of why he’s a good fit for the job, that’s what I’m looking for._

Which is basically a resume by another name. I have sympathy for his position
but everything I have ever read indicates that good resumes that get jobs are
customized to the position in question, are typically one or two pages, and do
not necessarily follow any particular format. Format varies depending on
industry, individual, etc.

Yeah, I found job-hunting hard. I don't really expect to ever do that again.
Normal jobs seem to be a poor fit for me. That's true for a lot of people.
There are plenty of professions where a portfolio is the norm rather than a
resume.

Also, the Fortune 500 company I once worked for gave me a battery of tests to
see if I could actually do the things my resume claimed I could do, in
essence. So his idea of testing candidates is not really new-fangled or
something either.

Even after I was a company insider, I could not figure out the job postings
the company listed online. I find the whole job hunting process incredibly
illegible and loathe it with the burning of a thousand suns. I now do
freelance work and have a few personal projects I am trying to develop. I
doubt I will ever apply to a normal job again. That really is not all that
strange.

~~~
josephwesley
I agree that the whole process is flawed. In addition to the resume problem,
job listings are ridiculous. They use inflated information about experience
needed etc. and scare off people that might be a good fit.

~~~
Mz
From what I gather, that's true. When I was in GIS school, one of the
administrators had an anecdote about how job listings were saying they wanted
people with like 5 to 10 years experience -- with a product that had come out
less than 5 years earlier.

