Is the resume dead?

"The résumé is dying. Its killers are part of a cabal of job seekers, employers, recruiters, authors, web-sites and résumé gurus. These co-conspirators may not know one another individually but together their work and best intentions have resulted in documents that not only mask the identity of the applicant but turn the employer into an investigator who must devise increasingly creative methods to peel off those masks...

A lot of employers will not even see your résumé,” says Patrick Sullivan, president of Workopolis. For positions advertised on the career web site, employers can have résumés screened with an automated tool for key words and phrases whittling the number of résumés that qualify from hundreds to five or ten that they actually read. Sullivan suggests that applicants read the job description closely and use the same or similar words in matching their skills to the tasks required...

The résumé is not yet dead but it is showing signs of age. Webfolios, with performance reviews, articles written, instructor’s comments on papers, linked to parts of a résumé, are gaining some credence in the US but have not yet moved to Canada. Although it is something to watch, it is more likely that companies will try on-line applications or more intensive testing and interviewing to compensate for the cloned résumé."

by Laureen Griffin

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