I don't know about marketing, but if I received a CV with this I'd most likely throw it straight in the trash. I don't want CVs to be unique, I judge people based on merit. The more basic the CV the better in my opinion. Just the other day I was slightly upset when someone showed me a candidates LinkedIn profile containing quite a non-professional picture because it immediately put me off a bit.
Likewise, I don’t expect my coworkers to care about my hobbies. Most of them would be horrified to find out.
How about a love of dance or photography?
We go to work to get paid for our skills, not to go camping together or share our love of bird watching.
What if a hobby included volunteering at a church, mosque, local GOP or DNC fundraising HQ, re-enacting War simulations or practicing at a gun range?
I agree with the posters above who think this is, at best, useless and at worst, a potential for discrimination.
>We go to work to get paid for our skills, not to go camping together or share our love of bird watching.
Some people prefer to work on teams where they're treated more like humans and less like cogs in a machine.
I can imagine tech jobs where most of the hobbies you've listed could be considered relevant. Dance? Biometric sensor tech. Guns? Video games. And so on...
Bad things don't always come from malice.
Often even education is no longer a useful signal. I've found myself looking away from educational information on resumes for all but the most junior of applicants. A candidate with even a couple of years of experience is lightyears removed from the school that has granted their degree. Likewise, a person with a similar number of years on the job but lacking a degree is similarly removed from their humble beginnings. There's no need to flaunt education.
In that sense, he's right: that system works for both sides.
If you hire chess players based on individual performance and regardless of group dynamics, then an argument could be made (not entirely trivially in all cases but it could be) that looking at anything except their ELO is illegitimate bias (and in fact some famous players from Lasker to Korchnoi said themselves that it's this objectivity which attracted them to chess). With programming, or most professions involving something meaningful as opposed to a measurable but pointless (and usually measurable because it is pointless) activity aka sport, it's much murkier.
Technical skills, attitude, work ethic, communication skills, and professionalism are really all you need to work with your colleagues successfully. Hobbies, pet preference, and exercise preference is irrelevant.
If you're not going to bother getting to know your colleagues (to make communication more efficient) than what's the added value of going to an office at all?
Am I making wrong assumptions about the use of going to an office?
Hiring is a two-way negotiation, and while I'm sure the grandparent doesn't see it that way, assertive declarations like "I don't want CVs to be unique, I judge people based on merit." are a workplace smell that some people don't want in exactly the same way that photos in a CV are.
It makes the boss sound like someone who values conformance and hates diversity. Maybe unfairly, but impressions are everything at this stage of a relationship.
To wit: if you really want to hire good people "based on merit", you need to stop being so judgy about the oddballs.
Personally, I'd prefer to just be valued based on my skills and work product. The alternatives risk being possibly very bad in my experience: possibly valuing politics, nepotism, etc., which obviously gets toxic and unfair very quickly.
I'm not saying people need to hire based on who's got a better photo on their resume. I'm saying that you shouldn't be surprised when people take your rhetoric about that stuff as a signal that you aren't going to be as fair a boss as you might think you are.
And maybe that's unfair. I've certainly never worked for you. But you need to be willing to market to free spirits if you actually want to hire the best people.
However, I really am a free spirit, having an exceptionally non-traditional path than most, and that is actually a good reason to want to work for someone who values skills and results foremost.
Don't be judgy about irrelevant stuff, is my point. Some people don't want to work for judgy conservatives, basically.
2. it is critical to remove subconscious bias in the hiring process.
3. the only effective means to do so as a society is to handicap those who take advantage of subconscious biases.
marketing in itself is less than a zero-sum game; it's players are parasites on the working class. we should all do our part to reduce it's effects.
"parasites on the working class" indeed.
I do wonder how putting your interests in the CV makes the company care? Where I work there is plenty of care regardless if you put it on your CV or not.
However, I’ve been told that it’s most useful as hook so that interviewers have something to remember beyond “dev from good school” or “consultant living in NYC”, which might describe a huge fraction of the candidate pool.
Another use I've heard mention is that being into team sports could signal that you're trained at communicating and "working" in a team.
Not sure I buy that, but yeah that's what they taught us at school about building a resume.
I'm not so sure about that. I like using unusual words because it adds a bit of color. The words should still be natural, though, not like you were trying too hard.
Better to assume that most players on Tinder want Criterion, but pick Netflix.
The goal of the dating website is to get a date. You do that by finding someone who seems interesting and who does not have any red flags. Why put out more information than is needed and give more for people to find something wrong with you?
Sometimes compatibility isn't really based on shared interests or other things that, well, make sense. Sometimes people work out that you can't really rationalize.
It also depends on what type of dating you're interested in - it's way less important for casual dating and hookups. With that you're more likely to filter yourself out than increase the chances of success.
For more serious dating for someone that cares about their partner having shared interests, etc., then yes, being filtered out is a feature and not a bug.
I guess the tricky part is hitting the balance of writing just enough but not any more.
With those little tidbits of virtue signaling that you choose to put in the resume usually give the opportunity for the reviewer to see you as more the “just a react dev” and depending on how many people your are competing with - gives you the edge.
Experience speaks for itself, and if you have the creds then sure those things can look like pure cruft, but what if you’re just starting out? You need something to stand out, and like it or not most reviewers are humans too, even worse - are not strictly technical, so if you for example like to run, mention that in your resume, and the HR person is also a runner, well he can recommend you based on “gut feeling” and how “runners are more emotionally stable and reliable” or some such.
And if by a chance their resume ends up reviewed and judged negatively base on non technical prejudice or something, well you’re better of not working there anyway, as it will probably be damaging emotionally in the long run.
These days I’d rather hire someone slightly less qualified that’s easy to work with than someone who looks perfect on paper and is going to cause me all sorts of problems. Especially when you run a business and are responsible for HR issues.
I can’t even remember the last time I really read a CV. What someone’s done in the past is only relevant in certain instances.