What next?

I see thousands of resumes in any given year and see a lot of tricks and tweaks designed to make one resume stand out from another. 99% of the resumes I see are still variations of the traditional paper-based format. Through the years people have played around with the traditional version by adding color, changing fonts, and adding pictures. As technology evolves so too will the resume, but what it will look like next remains to be seen. One version may be something like the following:

This is NOT my resume from Jordan McDonnell

When I first saw this I was pretty excited because what Mr. McDonnell has done is pretty cool. I love using technology and gadgets to do new things and his presentation of his resume information is certainly flashy and eye-catching. But the reality is that it took me conservatively about two minutes to get through his presentation. In that same time I could have reviewed 3-4 traditional resumes. At Pinnacol we still take some pride in the fact that we do personally review every resume that comes in. We don't rely on our applicant tracking system to screen candidates in or out of consideration. I can only imagine what it would be like to go through thousands of new resumes similar to Mr. McDonnell's. For companies that do use applicant tracking systems to screen candidates in or out I have no concept how their systems would handle candidate information like Mr. McDonnell presents.

Time will tell if Mr. McDonnell's use of technology eventually replaces the more traditional resume. If I was a candidate I would guess that I might hedge my bet by perhaps starting to do both. More and more I do see listed on candidates resumes a link to their personal website, and when the original resume passes the initial screen I will often go out and look at the extra electronic information. What do you think? Where will the future take us? There is certainly tremendous room for improvement in how companies with openings match up with candidates looking for opportunity.