Imagine There's No Resumes...

Leonardo Da Vinci invented the resume. Did you know that? In 1482 (10 years before Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue), Leonardo submitted his resume to the Duke of Milan highlighting his impressive experience. So, resumes have been in use for over 500 years!!

Obviously, resumes have evolved since then, but have they potentially evolved to the point of extinction?

Many hiring managers put an enormous importance on the resume. But why? We already know that many resumes are embellished with lies and partial truths. Careerbuilder reported last year that 58% of hiring managers have recognized lies on resumes. Beyond that, Careerbuilder noted that 42% of hiring managers spend at least 2 minutes reviewing each, individual resume they receive. So, multiply the amount of resumes you receive per job opening by 2 and then divide by 60 and now you have the exact number of hours you wasted trying to find a candidate to interview for your last open position.

Are resumes worth the time? Are we placing too much value on a piece of paper listing someone’s experience?

Ideas to ponder. We live in a technology driven society. With job boards a plenty, linkedin, facebook, twitter, etc., we have ways of finding out even intricate or intimate details about peoples’ lives. Most hiring managers already review social media before bringing candidates in to interview.

• What if we used a similar process of obtaining applicants, i.e. job boards, but instead of asking for resumes just get links to social media sites and gather your information there. Linkedin could provide you with all the details of a resume, including recommendations; facebook a personal character profile; twitter a 140 character snapshot of thoughts, creativity and what they find to be important personally and professionally. Right?
• Or, still using job boards you could have the candidates answer a series of questions ranging from extremely difficult to incredibly easy to find out if an applicant is truly qualified. Time the test so that you could determine whether or not a candidate is “googling” the answers. Based on this information you could make a decision to decline or offer an interview.
• Another option (even though it is a bit self serving) you could allow a staffing firm to become intimately involved in your hiring process and assist in resume screening for you. Setting limits on the amount of candidate submissions and setting aside time on your calendar to interview several candidates over a 2 or 3 hour period can save you a tremendous amount of time. Putting the onus on the staffing firm(s) to deliver quality candidates will drive out firms who don’t spend time to screen and develop relationships with professionals and drive down the amount of time you spend reviewing and screening under-qualified or unqualified candidates.

This is more of a “sci-fi” essay because as the cliché goes, “old habits die hard”. More or less we should just question why we do what we’ve always done and try to find new/better ways of increasing our own productivity and becoming more efficient with processes and procedures.

Hiring is a major time-spend for managers today and filtering through piles of resumes may be the only way of locating top talent and discovering the right match for your organization or company. But maybe, just maybe, it’s not…

Happy Hiring!