Resumes, are they the least trusted employment document?
The earliest known record of the resume dates back to Leonardo da Vinci. He is credited for writing the first resume in 1481–1482 to a potential employer, Ludovico Sforza. The résumé has since continued to be a description of a person, their abilities, and past employment. (Source Wikipedia)
Talking with hiring managers from small to enterprise companies, dealing with teams ranging from 4 to 150 in size, they all agree on one thing:- Resumes contain fluff, and the trust factor is low. So the first professional document shared with a potential employer is initiated in low confidence.
I read an article recently on plagiarism in resumes, scanned though all the community's feedback, and wondered if folks knew that companies are prepared to handle this in the most scalable solution possible today. Resume scraping, keyword matching, and machine-based inference are all viable solutions available today to deal with the resume storms, companies are experiencing. The consequence is templating and conformity! Today if your resume is non-ATS conforming, you are limiting your chances of being included in the company's talent funnel.
Resumes composed should adhere to best practices
- Ensure it conforms with STAR or a goal-based writing framework.
- Limit it to crucial skills and responsibilities, yet try to insight excitement in the mind of the reader.
- Keep the language sharp and objective.
Every resume looks the same, sounds the same, and will most likely be allocated the same time to scrub ranging from 30secs to 1 min. Another factor in play is the source of the resume, inbound talent funnel, outbound talent funnel, partner recruitment agency, internal referrals to social networks. In short, everyone has a trusted source. So in the context of social hiring, you are more likely to be of interest to any hiring team if a trusted source refers you for the position. Who trusts what? Go figure!
This is starting to become a tall order; writing skills and professional networking! Plagiarism is the least of your problems, chances are every resume submitted is already indexed and snapshotted, resting in a vast data-lake, waiting to be put to use.
I recently had this discussion with a friend(engineering leader who oversees an eighty-nine person organization) who shared that some of their hired bar-raisers and star talent, were initially rejected by their talent funnel right at the resume screen tier. After a dozen failed interview rounds, they opted to re-look at their funnel and found more favorable matches with high synergy in the reject list. The team then root caused the issue to be improper "roles and responsibilities mapping by the system" that caused them to get filtered out. I asked if the mapping issue was in the job description, resume, or both? With a smile, I got, "Everyone doesn't write machine-parseable resumes, and every job posting is a generalized outline. Sometimes companies miss good talent."
So what now?
If you are writing your resume today for a job, stop now and take a deep breath. Start your journey by reflecting on these 3 questions
- Where do you want to be?
- Where are you now?
- Can you see any gaps or paths forward?
Awareness of expectations will allow you to take stock and help you reflect your expectations in your resume. There are 3 things that you absolutely have control of
- your mind
- your body
- your craft
Let your resume embody your vision of your craft.
In my recent journey, I was conflicted between positioning myself as a product generalist or a product specialist. I self-reflected and took stock of expectations and decided what I wanted. For the next several interview opportunities, I said the same thing over and over again. I knew my super-power, I'm a go-getter; the quest then became finding a company that was looking for one.
Conclusion
Don't stress out!
"Today, a resume can only answer what you've done, not what you will do."
Change that, tell the world what you can and want to do!
I can guarantee that the job you land with that mindset will be far more fruitful to your expectations and goals than falling into the trap of conformity!
Good luck, happy hunting(dreams) out there!