I remember the sound of typewriter coming from the spare bedroom. This bedroom had recently been converted to a home office because my dad chose to leave his job and begin looking for work elsewhere. He typed out resume after resume. This was before word processors. This was before digital communication. He and my mom literally typed out each resume, sealed it up in a brown envelope, and mailed it off. Bazaar.
Now, candidate sourcing is conducted via the Web, of course. Hiring managers pursue quality hiring by subscribing to job boards and accessing more resumes than they can possibly sort through.
I wonder when this particular tool for candidate evaluation - the resume - will become as antiquated as the typewriter.
Our identities now live on the Web, in amazing detail. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. Full personal and professional portfolios can be uploaded. This reality renders the standard resume (listing only previous employers, titles and time durations) seem so very limited.
When will online employee screening become entirely different, where hiring managers are reviewing entire career portfolios as the standard? When's the tipping point when we all realize how outdated the resume is?
In today's job market, where companies can be very fussy about quality hiring, I can't help but think it will be soon.
The two-page resume just doesn't make sense anymore.
Currently the job market is looking a little heavier on the candidate side as companies are forced to release high quality talent due to shrinking markets and lower profits.
Many economists are predicting a turnaround in 2009 however. This will result in high candidate sourcing demands requiring companies to screen employees at a record level.
Obama is planning on using up to $850 billion dollars to create new jobs and stimulate the economy. Now is the time for candidates to update their career portfolio.
If candidate's do not have a career portfolio, creating a free online portfolio is easy. CareerScribe.com has the best portfolio and is improving candidate's ability to market themselves.
As the U.S. struggles to come out of this recession, it will all begin with new hiring and top talent. The job search begins with great career management. Companies will begin to hire this new talent. Even people with great jobs will find even better opportunity.
Obama's plan includes many public projects over the next 2-4 years. He also is planning to make Congress more transparent by making bills more accessible and publishing the plans online for the public to evaluate.
Now is the time to take advantage of the opportunity that will be created by this upcoming economic stimilus package.
Candidate evaluation has become a tricky topic. In the ancient days, companies would go to a big job board and search for people based on some keywords. They would then go through those hundreds of results and try to find a pool of fifty candidates to interview based solely on their resume.
Resume writing was important.
Slowly candidates started spending more time on their professional resume. At the same time, facebook, myspace, and linkedin were becoming a large part of their lives. Facebook and myspace were filling a personal trend in the social web. Linked In was the first to start people connecting in a professional sense in a real way. Since then, it has become a game of how many people you can become connected to.
Companies are now looking for more information during candidate evaluation. Candidates should be maintaining a professional portfolio which allows them to market themselves better. Companies can then import those candidates into CareerScribe which acts as their applicant tracking system to screen employees and improve quality hiring.
CareerScribe has become a tool for both companies and candidates in this new social web. It's more than a connecting game. I mean, this is your career we are talking about.
CareerScribe now allows you to reach out as a candidate to employers by sharing more information about yourself. This allows your high qualifications to come through in a professional way. Imagine sending a copy of your resume, a video, career highlights, and what you are looking for in a new job all in the best "presentation" anyone has ever done. One link, one password. It's too simple.
I recently left a job at a global pharmaceutical. I was in management. The work was reasonably satisfying.
I oversaw dozens of projects, most of them with significant regulatory or financial consequences. I was fairly successful at the work. My team and I brought new new initiatives to the table and we executed on the necessary (but less exciting) work.
I got a barge-load of experience. Enough to pack a professional portfolio that would impress any talent management system, or any HR department focusing on a quality hiring process.
Do you how much of that experience I documented during my work at this company? Almost none. Incredibly little.
There was so much good stuff - the kind of stuff I certainly want to see as I screen employees. I have precious few artifacts to show for my work.
I'll assert that the main reason I saved little of the work is not becuase I under-valued it. And it's not because there were no deliverable unworthy of the professional portfolio. It's because I had no where to put them in one place and describe the context within which the work got done.
One spot online to build a free online portfolio - now that would be awesome. :)
www.careerscribe.com
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