Throw It in the Pile

I can see why the demise of CV/Resume is discussed a lot but I don’t see it going anywhere because it is so easy to automate the reading as an initial screening.

Sadly most hiring practices are about minimising the chance of making a bad hire rather than maximising the chance of a great hire and the resume provides a lot of good initial signals to that end without a human needing to be involved.

I would love the CV to go away but I don’t see it, LinkedIn does a good job of providing an alternative but it’s really just a CV with social signals so not a whole lot different.

Something that we're trialling is first asking several questions similar to what we would ask in an interview[1], and only if the answers make sense then asking for a candidates CV. This means that by the time we see the CV we're already interested in the candidate, and have a high probability of moving forward with an actual interview.

[1] For example:

  You need to implement a new feature you’ve never done before. How do you go about it?

  When authoring a new endpoint (for example, a REST endpoint or a GraphQL object), what do you pay attention to? Feel free to go into as much or as little details as you wish.

I once applied for a job at a well known company that's mentioned at the very bottom of my CV as a hobby. I spoke with 4 different people none of whom ever got to the bottom to see that I'm actually a big fan of their product. Which was expected but also kind of disappointing.

That aside, part of the problem with CV's is that it almost never reveals a person's level of competence or the ability to learn, both of which are critical when recruiting. You can be good at describing your formal responsibilities and bad at, say, coding, or vice versa.

A few things that you can add at the top of your CV that I think can make it a little more meaningful:

- List your skills with years of experience in each. This one is easy to do and is quite effective.

- Ask for honest references from your colleagues and managers and quote them in your CV. This is a bit unusual outside of social networks like LinkedIn and AngelList, but might work.

- Include a paragraph that describes your philosophy, the people or views you admire. This may potentially have a stronger positive or a stronger negative effect on the reader, but you probably want to be hired by someone whose views and philosophy are better aligned with your own ones.

- A short (even 30 sec!) video can best represent your personality and make your CV stand out among dozens and even hundreds of other candidates.

I think going through CV's with the above at the top would make the hiring process more fun and much more efficient too.