Noteworthy

Seth says it is time to go without a…

…resume, which I find quite timely because I just had a long conversation with a friend about the value of resumes this weekend.

I mentioned to my friend that I hadn’t put a resume together since I left engineering and I had no plans to ever create a resume in the future because I wouldn’t want a job that would hire me based on my resume as oppose to my reputation.

Interestingly, I even had an example to give my friend.  Not too long ago, a recruiter from Google contacted me to ask if I’d be interested in working in their Strategic Partner Development Group.  In terms of a corporate job, working for Google in NYC would be about as good as it gets, so I said I would definitely entertain the idea.

When the recruiter asked for a resume, I happily emailed her a link to connect with me on LinkedIn figuring this would suffice for a web-savvy company like Google.   It didn’t.   In order to file things correctly, she wanted a traditional resume.  LinkedIn was as good as it was going to get from me, so surprise, surprise, I never got another call.

Truth is, I’m not so principled on this particular issue to say I’d never put together a traditional resume, but at the moment, I’m not excited about getting back into the corporate grind.   I’d only jump back into that world if someone made me a ridiculous offer I couldn’t refuse and no one is going to do that based on a resume.

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9 responses

  1. Magnus Avatar
    Magnus

    More on the same topic; http://www.zoliblog.com/2008/03/17/resumes-are-dead-your-blog-is-your-resume-still/

    Reply
  2. Dan Woolley Avatar
    Dan Woolley

    I’ve been wondering why LinkedIn doesn’t just make a “create an old fashioned resume” link. They’ve got all the data. Would further encourage users to make LinkedIn their hub for career networking.

    Reply
  3. Dustin Avatar
    Dustin

    Dan,

    That also came up in our conversation this weekend! I actually suggested to my friend (who is a software coder/architect) that he see if he could use LinkedIn’s API to create that exact application.

    However, ideally it would just be built into the existing platform. They already let users select items for what should be displayed publicly versus privately, so all they’d have to do is add a third option of display in “print”. Assuming they added a few (1) themes and (2) drag and drop fields so you could customize how the resume looked, it doesn’t have to be complicated to be quite useful.

    Reply
  4. Dan Woolley Avatar
    Dan Woolley

    One more addition to those thoughts – you should be able to get a unique url to a PDF format of your resume, dynamically created from your profile data. That way when a company said “we need a real resume”, you’d just send them a url and say “Print this”. No attachments, no snail mail, and you’re guaranteed that your resume is up to date, because the PDF is generated right when the link is clicked using up to date profile data.

    Different themes are a bonus.

    Reply
  5. Dustin Avatar
    Dustin

    That would be awesome!

    Reply
  6. Jillayne Schlicke Avatar
    Jillayne Schlicke

    Although Seth’s idea is a good one, traditions die hard. Depending on what’s going on in a person’s life, having an old-fashioned resume that’s updated and ready to go can save a person a whole lot of time.

    Interestingly, I have found that I keep the word doc version meticulously up to date but I don’t update my internet version as often.

    What do you think, Dustin, is this website a good idea? Maybe I should just scratch the whole thing and create a blog:

    http://schlicke.com

    Reply
  7. Jillayne Schlicke Avatar
    Jillayne Schlicke

    Dustin,

    I’m getting ready to submit a package to the Idaho Assoc of Realtors in order to obtain continuing ed approval.

    In this case, all I have to do is open my resume doc and hit “print” because it’s all up to date.

    Point: Seth is a genius but a word doc resume is still needed.

    Reply
  8. Dustin Avatar
    Dustin

    Jillayne,

    You’re too awesome… and give a compelling example.

    However, I could also point out that I recently landed two different speaking gigs (only one was announced), each of which pays more than I made in a month as an engineer and neither of which required a resume. 😉 One gig came because someone attended another presentation I gave at NAR (thanks to my RCG experience) and the other is a direct result of this blog. In both cases, 4realz served as a better resume than anything I could have presented in a traditional resume.

    I guess the argument isn’t that resumes aren’t useful (as you point out, they can be extremely useful), but that for the types of jobs I enjoy doing, a traditional resume is simply going to be inadequate and wouldn’t land me the opportunities I’m striving to make happen.

    Reply
  9. MikeHaleHomes Avatar
    MikeHaleHomes

    Ctrl+P… That’ll do it!

    At the very least, we could get back to 1-page resumes! Rarely does anyone go past the last position anyway. My background was in software development, and I used to have to review resumes up to six pages with every detail imaginable. I generally just skimmed them and found out what I needed to know in the interview.

    Having a “CV” type bio sheet with history and accomplishments isn’t a bad idea though.

    Reply

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