Now that I have your attention, I’d like to go over where resumes (or as some call, the CV) are now and where I feel they 
will be in the future. If you want to predict how many years it will take for the traditional resume, the one we love to hate, will disappear from the face of the planet, leave a comment citing the amount of years it has left. My prediction is five more years, which is also aligned to approximately how many years it will take for all media to completely converge and for recruiters to rely 100% on the internet (and personal relationships) for recruitment. A resume, just like a press release, is what people have been used to receiving, viewing and analyzing for years, yet now, with the advent of social technologies, they’ve become less and less relevant to our global society.
What is a resume and why is it important still?
You, just like almost everyone else, were first introduced to the common (and templated) resume format while attending undergraduate college. It might have occurred if you were smart enough to search for internships, in preparation for your entry-level job search or right before your search. Either way, you were dreading the resume creation and revision process because it felt emotionless and too standardized.
Resume: A brief account of one’s professional or work experience and qualifications, often submitted with an employment application (The Free Dictionary).
The common format:
- Objective/summary
- Education
- Major projects
- Experience
- Activities
A resume is seen as a candidate marketing document and a requirement for the recruitment process. They are still required today because employers keep databases and file resumes away (probably never to be looked up) just in case there is a potential job fit at some point in time. It’s important because it is a standard way to grade applicants and compare and contrast the contents to each other, in hope to rule one or more out before interviews are held.
The resume’s many flaws
If a resume was powerful enough to get you a job, why are there job interviews? Resume’s lack personal connection, which is why they will evolve in the future. Our society demands a more accurate and painted picture of an individual. A resume doesn’t tell a story, which is why cover letters were created in the first place. Employers are begging to know why you want to work there and how you go to where you are today, as well as where you see yourself in the future. This is how they match you to the right job and decide that you mesh well with their culture. The fact that resumes need to be supported by an interview, a cover letter, references and other documents tells you that hiring managers use them primarily to sort through qualified and unqualified candidates only. They aren’t decision making documents, which is a big opportunity for the next generation resume to fix that.
What could be the next-gen “resume”?
I’ve thought about this question a lot in the past few years and I don’t have one solid conclusion. What I do know is that they may resemble something in between a “social media resume” and LinkedIn. A social media resume has elements that no traditional resume does, including a self-portrait, sharing features, it lives on a website/blog, it can be customized, and there’s multimedia. The most compelling part of this type of resume is the multimedia area, where you can do a short video resume of yourself talking about why you’re different, why you’re qualified for the position and why you want to work there. There’s something special and intriguing about video and since communication skills are a HUGE part of business now, a video is a good way of drawing on emotion and showing those skills to employers. A social media resume has elements that reflect this “new resume” that you may see accepted in five years.
Buy a webcam and start practicing and recording your pitch through video because video interviews are coming. There are a few companies that are starting handle video interviews, such as Interview-on-demand (a Personal Branding Magazine sponsor) and HireVue. Employers are looking to cut costs in anyway possible and this makes sense, especially when the candidate lives in another country or state.
LinkedIn also shares some components that illustrate the future of resumes as well. With LinkedIn, companies can share a global talent network, whereas right now companies have their own private databases. VisualCV is also an interesting website that shows the future of resumes, but the user base isn’t even close to as strong as LinkedIn. Employers don’t want to have to go to twenty websites to find talent, which is why there will be one main winner in this game.
A few predictions
- Why does a company need a private database of resumes? They won’t need it when LinkedIn is home to a few hundred million person talent pool in five years.
- LinkedIn may allow your profile to become more like a social media resume. It would bring more traffic to them too!
- Employers are going to have to worry about discrimination through online background checks and figuring out how to store and utilize their talent bases more.
- Employee referrals will be one of the top recruitment strategies out there because people will be connected to everyone (1st, 2nd or 3rd degree).
- You won’t need to send or print your resume out ever again because all employers will Google you and search your name on the top social networks. It will be a standard just like a drug test.
- Your world views and thought leadership will count as much as the contents on your resume. Companies will be forced to have creative and innovative employees that can look to the future, not the past. Your ideas are going to matter more than you can ever imagine. This is something that BrazenCareerist.com founder Penelope Trunk also believe in.
How long do you think it will take before the resume is obsolete? What do you think the future resume will look like?
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[...] Over on Dan Schwabel’s Personal Branding blog there has been talk lately about how resumes as we know them will die and some new way of documenting our experience will rise and take its [...]
On our Jobboard http://www.spirofrog.de we often asked candidates about the same topic. Hence, the problem is the employers not moving into the right direction. Some of them adopt very slowly new techniques like Twitter, facebook and co. Time will tell and I am sure that some major software players will also enter this market.
[...] Posted by Melissa on September 30, 2009 Dan Schawbel had a post on his Personal Branding Blog entitled “Predict the End of the Traditional Resume Here.” [...]
Dan,
Excellent thoughts about the potential demise of the resume. However, I must respectfully disagree with your optimistic prediction of employers adopting other forms of media to consider candidates.
Employer adoption of social media and networking is extremely slow, cumbersome, and bureaucratic. 5 years is an extremely short time frame.
First, the resume will NEVER go away. The tribal paradigm of using resumes is too deeply embedded in HR, hiring managers, and recruiters. Okay, maybe NEVER was too strong a word – how about NOT IN MY LIFETIME!
Second, many of the stats about recruiters and human resources using social media and social networking to recruit is over-inflated. Beyond LinkedIn, very few organizations are effectively tapping into social media and networking to recruit – outside of the social media business sector.
Third, for companies to adopt other forms of “candidate presentation”, candidates will need to adopt these new technologies. We’re a long way from widespread adoption in only 5 years. As of today, in our recent research, less than 10% of all candidates have a LInkedIn Profile that could be considered meeting minimum standards.
I do believe that over the next decade, you’ll see many companies include other information beyond the resume, such as video and audio links, slide presentations to enhance particular key points, and perhaps looking at expanded information on LinkedIn. The resume unfortunately is here to stay and will NOT go away anytime soon.
Does form truly follow function? The resume, well prepared, serves multiple functions, especially self-evaluation and discernment. Poorly done, a resume is just an attempt to fill in the blanks of an employment form.
Check Martin Yate’s book “Knock ‘Em Dead” for insights and realistic views about the hiring process. Social media can provide bona fides for certain jobs, but who spend the time with video or [gasp] PowerPoint to strut their stuff? If it can’t be electronically sorted and vetted, will it be accepted?
My guess is: it will be like web dating and matching… a diversion, suitable for some, but not widely adopted.
[...] of the road for the Curriculum Vitae as we know it. Following Dan Schawbel’s excellent piece Predict the End of the Traditional Resume Here in Personal Branding Blog last week, here are 5 more reasons why LinkedIn will prove to be the [...]
Dan – I agree that the resume will go the way of the dinosaur and surprised at how many in the work place have not even considered creating an electronic/social media presence that is career oriented. I see that as more of the baby boomers leave the work force or reposition out of administrative positions they will be taking with them the traditional resume. This is when I see the “new” social media resume taking over. Lots to think about!
Either way, the benefits of establishing your own electronic footprint is very valuable!
I wouldn’t wait for the boomers to retire before the traditional resume becomes obsolete. Boomers are as young as 46 and many of them have no thought of retirement.
I see it as more of a traditional technology adoption. I believe we’re at the early majority stage for online branding (resumes included). The laggards will eventually retire I suppose but more likely they will be the ones stuck in dead-end jobs with no chance of having opportunity find their door.
Melissa
Print resumes are probably on the same track as print daily newspapers. Online, though, “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet …” Maybe we’re splitting hairs here about terminology. A social media profile IS a resume. What I wonder about more is when HR recruiters and other managers will drop their hubris about being able to read candidates in a job interview. Studies show that people who interview well are frequently just good at interviewing–not at what they will be doing on the job. (BTW, I’m smack in the middle of the Baby Boomer demographic)
I believe the Mayans predicted the demise in 2012. Okay, all kidding aside, the traditional resume will fade into history and social networking sites (or some variation of them) will be the norm. As for a timeframe, who would have thought LinkedIn, Facebook or MySpace were household names 5 years ago? The speed of technology and the competition to find a position is getting more sophisticated. This may result in people finding the right job and staying with it longer.
The adoption of a new resume format will not happen on a large scale in 5 years. For some industries, this has already happened (social media, etc) but this is not the norm. Larger corporations cannot handle any other format right now, and until they can, the traditional resume is here to stay.