State Of The Resume 2020

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and thinking the results will change.

Did Albert Einstein say it? Probably, maybe, who cares? I'm sure he thought it.

Here's mine (PDF) if you're curious. I have a few - this emphasis is on coding. (Design resumes are a topic for their own blog post.)

So many questions about resumes...

Do resumes get you the job or don't they? Are you just bad at resumes, or just unlucky?

Functional or chronological? Inexperience? Employment gaps? Life got in the way of your career - how do you explain that?

Should you send eMails asking for the position you're going for, regardless of whether or not the company is advertising for one, with resume attached? Should you cold call and tell them how great you are? (How do you do that when you're out of school, or changing careers, and are crossing your fingers hoping you don't suck at your first position? And if you wanted a career in sales, why would you have done all that in the first place?!)

Ask 5 people any of these questions, and you'll get five different answers. This is the kind of advice kids out of school, or people changing careers, get. In case the link self-destructs, my favorite line:

Business is driven by numbers. That makes your numbers the best way to communicate your success. Your ability to increase revenues by $, or decrease costs by $, or increase efficiency by %, or reduce waste by “x”, all speak directly to your competence and capabilities as a professional. That’s what makes future bosses sit up and take notice.

Mmmmmmkay.

What if you didn't get to do that? What if you worked in a group and those numbers can't be attributed to you and your huge brain? Does that mean you can't start your career, because you haven't already reached the level where your work is measured by that criteria?

Even better, when you go for that amazing job that's going to guarantee you a fat career and a house in the 'burbs, you're going to have to accurately guess your potential boss' answers to ALL these questions, as well as the answers everyone on his team (who also approve your hiring at some point, or dissent and then will have to deal with you on their team) believe to be correct.

It's enough to make a grown man cry.

Remember typing resumes with a typewriter?! You kids with your Google Docs templates have no idea how good you have it these days.

Is there a better way?

Sort of. Right now, testing for certain skillsets and best practices for analyzing the abilities of candidates are not good. If you apply for, say, a coding job via LinkedIn, you will be subject to a battery of questions on deprecated variables and esoteric solutions to imaginary problems, resulting in your immediate disqualification based on low relevancy criteria. This does not help young candidates who have learned on their own and bring working solutions of their own. I'm certain this is the case across STEMm* jobs of every kind.

And, of course, the joke about needing a resume for low to no-skilled jobs...just isn't funny anymore.

Less correspondence song and dance, better testing and evaluatory training for hiring professionals. A resume can be great for experienced workers, but it should not be an obstacle to inexperienced workers getting started any more.

That's how it works in a perfect world.

*STEMm: Science, Technology, Engineering, Math...and Medicine!

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