
The future of work will not contain resumes - lukas
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/the-future-of-work-wont-contain-resumes/
======
patio11
Resumes, and the entire "fire a resume and pray" job search model, are for
people who suck at sales and/or are ignorant about how hiring works. Have one,
sure, but the main use is after you have gotten preferential consideration or
an offer. (You get these by introductions by people trusted by the decision
maker, being identifiably the best at the problem, etc.)

Networking, a portfolio, and a sales page on your website are much, much
better plays for most of the people here.

------
eitally
When reading resumes I always look for supplemental information first. I saw a
post here recently that explained how to read patents. There should be a
similar article explaining to candidates how technical managers/recruiters
read resumes & CVs. Put simply, college/resume/coursework/memberships/keywords
will get you past HR but the hiring manager or team will skip all that and
look for project details. I'm only bothering to post this because you are
saying exactly the same thing but using the context of the modern web. I just
want applicants to know that they don't have to use the web to get interviews
as long as their resume contains the same kind of information.

I wish university career counselors would teach students this....

------
DanielBMarkham
Resumes are sales tools.

The author is basically saying that since we have Angie's List, plumbers no
longer need Yellow Pages ads.

Certainly hiring is becoming more complex, but saying the resume will
disappear as a sales tool seems more than a bit extreme. It will evolve like
everything else.

------
fauigerzigerk
Count me as skeptical. Ratings of past jobs only work for people who do one
project per month, otherwise a single dispute distorts the rating. It's prone
to extortion and manipulation. You do that feature for free or I'm going to
ruin your score. People will spend lots of time massaging their online profile
instead of getting work done. Lots of useless blogs, tactical contributions to
open source projects, etc.

The only way to find out whether someone is good is to see first hand what
he/she has done before or work with them on something small and then build on
that.

------
dpritchett
Author is the CEO of a "labor on demand" company; prefers elance-style ratings
by past employers to the resume.

------
wittgenstein
It's not as if replacing resumes with some online tool like LinkedIn is a
significant difference. Both are advertising tools, and both can be very
misleading.

------
jonathanjaeger
While resumes are becoming obsolete, the actual cover letter can tell a lot
about a person. One person might write the same stock cover letter for most of
their job applications while someone else might personalize their cover
letters for the particular company and job they are applying for. Which one do
you think cares more about getting the job? Overall I agree that resumes are
not a tell-tale sign of one's qualifications and personality, but if you are
"Google-able", then at least you have something to supplement your resume
(hopefully in a positive light).

------
sabj
As a current college student sending out a _lot_ of cover letters and resumes
at present, I have to say I sure wish that the resume was obsolete.

I definitely try to supplant it personally with my online branding / presence,
but right now people still use resumes a lot for some positions. I have enough
good, sexy things to put on a resume that I don't mind, per se, but...

What I have 150% observed from my painful process at the moment is just how
very, very ripe for disruption this whole horrible 'job application' process
is. So many terrible software solution providers out there, with so little
innovation or competition apparently going on to make their products more
usable, less painful, etc. I can't imagine that they are doing so much to help
make things simple for HR on the back-end, either.

If this was a subject that I was really passionate about, I'd definitely be
trying to start a start-up there... would probably help if I could code half
decently, too, but the point remains valid. I don't find it sexy, but it's a
big opportunity. Happy to vent in more detail and help someone who is inspired
though.

~~~
agentultra
I'd agree that there could be something done. There's vast amounts of
information _about_ people out there. At least in the software industry I see
software tools being very useful in pre-screening resumes before inviting
people in for interviews.

It's something I've started working on. Job hunting myself. Lots of free time.
:S

------
brc
I have a an unstarted startup idea that basically looks at the hiring process
as a series of steps in a value chain, then works out how to bust that up to
break up the job-agent market. Anyone who has done freelance contracting has a
grab-bag full of 'bad agent' stories. There's massive scope for connecting
potential employees and employers together and eliminating the agent in the
middle. But someone has to weed out the bad hires and process all the
information, so the solution is crowdsourcing the bits and pieces that go into
hiring-having a trusted resume sorter, an effective job-ad writer, etc. I
think the existing hiring model is extremely outmoded given the technology
available, but the right 'new' business model hasn't emerged yet. We're pretty
much still at the point of putting newspaper ads online.

------
johnglasgow
If anything, LinkedIn profiles will replace resume's.

