Recently there has been a spate of interesting articles, ebooks, and other writings about the death of the resume. As far back as 1970, Richard Bolles wrote about the declining need for resumes in his groundbreaking career book, What Color Is Your Parachute? Noticing this trend awhile back, Brazen Careerist wrote a great blog post about the ongoing death of the resume. And yet the resume continues to hang around and I’m reminded of the old Mark Twain quote, “the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
Resumes aren’t dead, but they are evolving, as they always have. And if you want to succeed in today’s hiring environment, it’s important to make sure your resume reflects the fields in which you plan to work and that you have created a social media support system to present your story to potential employers.
There was a time when resumes were typed individually and then copied (“Xeroxed” as we used to say) onto quality paper or sent to a professional printer. Employer expectation was that you would present your experience and education in an organized chronological manner. Because it was time-consuming and expensive to print a lot of copies, most job-seekers printed one all-purpose generic resume. Some cover letters were also copied and used generically, although serious job seekers took the time to write individual cover letters personalized to specific employers before mailing their generic resume.
The advent of personal computing, word processing, and inexpensive printing brought about significant changes in resume writing—most notably the concept of the targeted resume. Job-seekers were expected to personalize their resumes to the career field they were seeking, sometimes altering the order of the experience, adding or subtracting jobs and or degrees based on the interests of the employer, etc. This is still the gold standard for resumes, and HR professionals still rely on traditional resumes for hiring purposes. My office at The University of Texas recently hosted a job fair and of the 65 employers present, 64 requested traditonal resumes from our students.
So, the short answer is no, the resume is not dead. Paper resumes brought to job fairs, electronic versions email to potential employers, etc., still result in hiring. But it’s time to look around and make sure that your resume is doing its job—and if it’s not, whether you need to retire it and develop a new marketing strategy for your job search.
Because there are some new kids in town—graphic and hybrid resumes—and they’re traveling with their social media buddies, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
In his blog post, “The Resume is Dead, the Bio is King,” Michael Margolis notes that if you’re in a creative or entrepreneurial field, you probably haven’t been asked to show your resume in ages. In fact, he notes, potential clients or employers are more likely to Google you and assess your online profile. To take advantage of this trend, he wisely presents some pointers for your online profile including asking key questions like: "Who am I?"; "How can I help you?"; "What do I know?"; "Why can you trust me?"; and "What do we share in common?" These are excellent questions to consider before any job search, and a great way to start preparing your statement (in whatever format) to a potential employer.
Infographics and new online presentations are changing the way we conceptualize a resume. Check out these examples from Pinterest to find some creative infographic-style resumes. Business Insider posted a list of 7 Cool Resumes We Found on Pinterest
Also check out Hanna Phan's compelling Presume as created in Sliderocket. A hybrid resume, cover letter and presentation, it’s clever, creative and fun—and it’s not hard to see why she would be hired quickly. Talent wins. Just as interesting though is her discussion of how she got her presume in front of the right audience by designing a creative social media campaign which fit her unique marketing approach. In other words, no boring letters to HR.
I personally welcome these new resume concepts. Their creativity and cleverness inspire me, and I hope that their creators are meeting with much success. But there is a challenge here—time and talent. The new graphic resumes are creative and interesting—but that doesn’t mean they are any easier or less time-consuming to produce. Sliderocket now has templates for the Presume, but the helpful training video Ms. Phan provides to explain how she created her presume takes 45 minutes—and that’s just to learn how she did it. You can expect to put in many hours creating your own—even with templates. Preparation and planning are just as important with a graphic resume as they are with a traditional one. And after an employer starts to see hundreds of these resumes, will they lose their unique and creative appeal?
Regardless of the style of resume you ultimately create, the same basic rules still apply. Your work needs to stand out. Your creation needs to be the best. You still need to focus on the story you’re telling and the order in which you tell the story. The employer needs to know who you are. You need the right marketing approach. You need to demonstrate your abilities and present the information the employer is seeking in a logical and easy to understand format. You need to start by planning your message: What is the goal of your resume and how will you accomplish that? Who is your audience? What are they expecting? How would they like to view your resume?
Resume writing—more specifically, creating a brand—continues to evolve and I'm looking forward to seeing where these creative techniques go. So far all the successful examples I’ve seen (as in, resulting in employment) have been in creative fields like publishing, graphics, writing, marketing, sales, entrepreneurial ventures, and high-tech social media organizations. I would be interested to learn if anyone has been successful with a graphic resume (or presume) in fields like human resources, banking, accounting, consulting, the law, higher education, health careers, etc. If you have, please join in the conversation and share your examples!
©2012 Katharine Brooks. All rights reserved. Find me on Facebook and Twitter.