Managing and sorting the flow of resumes from corporate databases, websites, job boards and agency recruiters is a problem for recruiters, candidates and hiring authorites.

Recruiters are handling numerous reqs while drinking from the firehose of people actively seeking work, while candidates know submitting a resume into the black hole of corporate HR is such an irritating public process with no feedback the career site should just state out front - best candidates interested in valuable immediate feedback need not apply. And the poor, many times forgotten Hiring Manager who needs the talent, typically leaves on Friday afternoon with a stack of resumes to review and contact…and ain’t it a frustrating shame when the one you find and call is not even on the market. Folks this is not a new problem…the pain has been around awhile and has gotten worse with job boards.

Resumes have become a problem for both recruiters and job candidates. Recruiters can spend all day, every day simply rooting through resumes, the majority of which won’t do the trick. By the time they find a resume for a candidate that’s right for a job, that candidate could very well have already found something, or at the very least become incredibly disgruntled by the fact that he’s had to wait so long just to get some follow up, a call, an email–just a little something to let them know that their existence matters.

And that’s from the 15% of candidates willing to publicly share a resume (see our post on Are You Among the Unserved). Where’s the ability to reach all the rest! Does anyone think quality results would increase if we could reach more faster? Of course….but most stick to doing things the same way. With limited or poor results, some would call that insanity.

For candidates, even having a resume has become an issue. Some of the biggest talents are quiet working professional who haven’t had a resume in years. Others would much rather sit down with a recruiter and talk about what they’re looking for instead of being reduced to some facts on a sheet of a paper:

“…a Yahoo recruiter who has been talking with me on and off for the past few months…keeps bugging me to send him a resume. He told me why a resume is needed, cause it’ll help him find me a job that’s a good fit for both of us. I just wrote him back and said ‘I just took a job that didn’t require a resume, sorry.’” (From Scobleizer)

The self-admitted “snarky” Scoble is not alone in his disdain for the resume, but as one of his readers made clear; candidates don’t have a lot of choice in the matter anymore:

“I haven’t had a resume in over 20 years…now I am “between positions” and everyone wants to see a killer resume.”

So, what do you do? Put together a “killer” resume and let it sit in a pile of other “killer” resumes collecting dust? Well, some believe that there are specific ways to ensure that your resume is the one getting read. Employment Digest suggests that, among other things, you:

“Keep calling agencies even though it is soul-destroying. Keep yourself in the front of their minds. The right job might have just come in and you’ll be at the front of the line. Out of sight, out of mind. If you haven’t been in touch for a while, they’ll probably assume that you’re off the market for whatever reason. Have a list of agencies that you call every two weeks, calling a selection of them every day.”

Man, there’s nothing like a “soul-destroying” activity to get you going in the morning, right?

Resumes might be a necessary evil (without them we wouldn’t get to carp, blog and ultimately present a better solution - right?), but there has to be a better way for all parties involved to connect. Candidates don’t want to spend their time relentlessly hounding recruiters, recruiters have better things to do than sifting through a never ending stack of papers and Hirng Managers need fast quality results. At itzbig, we’re fond of pointing out the problems with the industry, but we’re fonder of seeking out solutions. With the help of recruiters, hiring authorities, quiet job candidates, and active job candidates we’re developing something better. Join one our Advisory Councils and be a part of the revolution. Or at least help us get rid of the resume problem.

Share This