Point – Counter Point: Is the resume dead?

More than one of my clients sent me the link to the Wall Street Journal article, No more resumes, some firms say… and I immediately dismissed it. Regular readers know that I believe that the resume is the foundation of the job search!

But then, who am I? Julie Walraven, yes, I may be the owner of Design Resumes, a professional resume writer, and even a CPRW, but really, should I go up against the Wall Street Journal? The Wall Street Journal should be right, yes?

Should we dismiss the time-tested resume?

No! And happily I followed a tweet by Jorgen Sundberg,  Undercover Recruiter to this post by John Hollon, the Vice President for Editorial of TLNT.com, and the former Editor of Workforce Management. His post is entitled: Weekly Wrap: Why Are We So Quick to Dismiss the Good, Old Résumé?

Mr. Hollon points out that the “some firms say” is really a study of 3 firms… Yes, I said 3. Yup, I really believe an information that bases the opinion on three firms instead of in-depth research with reliable results. This article is so good that I recommend you do read it later but I want to share my favorite part:

Ok, I get that traditional résumés are old school — boring, old technology, one directional, often poorly done — but they haven’t lasted as long as they have by accident. They work, even in our technology crazy times, because of one simple thing: they allow a hiring manager or recruiter to get a quick, brief snapshot of an applicant.

Why résumés still work

It may not be the best view they get, but it is one they can get quickly and easily with little muss or fuss. Give me an hour and a two-foot pile of résumés, and I’ll give you the Top 5 or 10 candidates in that stack. Yes, I still want to see their social media presence, but I can thumb through and scan that résumé pile pretty quickly — and a lot faster than I could track down and eyeball all of their LinkedIn profiles or Facebook pages.

It’s frankly silly and somewhat dishonest for The Wall Street Journal to take what three companies do and give the impression that it is the big new trend. Yes, a résumé isn’t the perfect way to evaluate a job candidate, but it’s a good start that is easy to access and understand, especially for your technology challenged CEO.

And yes, both the hiring managers and job seekers are buried

Brilliant! I understand that recruiters and HR managers are buried in resumes and I know many job seekers do it wrong by blasting out volumes of poorly written resumes instead of carefully targeting just the jobs they are both qualified for and really want. But the need for the right, well-written, accomplishment-laden resume to open the door for the job seeker has never gone away, especially in the worst economy in 80 years.

One more quote from Mr. Hollen’s article:

Oh, and by the way, that same WSJ story about the expected death of the résumé noted this way down in paragraph 16:

At most companies, résumés are still the first step of the recruiting process, even at supposedly nontraditional places like Google Inc., which hired about 7,000 people in 2011, after receiving some 2 million résumés. Google has an army of “hundreds” of recruiters who actually read every one, says Todd Carlisle, the technology firm’s director of staffing.”

Imagine that. Google still uses old school résumés. I wonder if that has anything to do with how they’re doing?

I stand by my belief that the resume is indeed the foundation of your job search. Just spend some time getting that resume right and then some time actually targeting your job search coupled with a very healthy dose of networking and you will be on your way to a new career!

Stuck in your job search or just ready to move on from your existing position? Julie Walraven can help you find a new career! To find out how, Click here!

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