Employers ‘couldn’t care less’ about your CV

STOP agonising over the perfect resume, because as of now, it’s irrelevant. This is why you don’t actually need one to land a job.

WHEN Sarah Peck pursued a job opportunity at One Month — a Manhattan-based online school for entrepreneurs — she didn’t submit a resume. The 32-year-old didn’t need one to score an interview.

“We had three or four hour-long meetings,” the New York resident said. “Each time it was like diving deep into an idea, like marketing strategy and course development strategy.”

After six different meetings, the former freelancer had to work for 30 days on a project as a test drive before she earned her offer as director of communications in December 2014.

Ms Peck gained entry based on her skills and strengths shown in the interview process, not a bullet-point list on a piece of paper.

It’s a new trend in hiring, with employers giving more weight to a candidate’s interview performance and social media presence than his or her career timeline on a piece of paper.

“I didn’t even notice that they hadn’t asked for a resume,” Ms Peck said. “My work was online, and they’d seen what I could do through my project experience and reputation.”

One Month’s chief executive and co-founder Mattan Griffel said the resume — which is currently optional for candidates to submit when applying online — just wasn’t useful.

“I end up ignoring the resume entirely,” Mr Griffel said. “It’s this walled garden … If you’re going to mention a project on your resume, I want to click to explore more.”

Doug Bernstein, vice president of programming and analytics at sports website Bleacher Report, agreed. “The person is more important than the paper,” he said.

While candidates apply to Bleacher Report by submitting their resumes and cover letters, the system requests links to their Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram accounts.

“The resume may get a two-second look, and the cover letter and Twitter profile gets a good minute, two minutes — however long it takes,” Mr Bernstein said.

Amy Schumer’s character in Trainwreck showed she knew how to get the job done.

He said he relied heavily on social media to learn what a candidate was really about. “Is what [he or she is] posting in line with what we’re creating, with a similar voice and style? We want people who really get it.”

And, he said, cover letters were becoming more important than ever.

One Bleacher Report candidate was a reporter from the University of Kansas who wrote in his cover letter about how he diligently waited for three hours outside a top basketball player’s dorm room. His dedication earned him an interview with the now-star of the Philadelphia 76ers, Joel Embiid, about his decision to enter the NBA draft — before the candidate’s competition.

“That ended up becoming a big story,” Mr Bernstein said. “He’s willing to stay late and do whatever it takes.” And yes, the reporter got the job.

Todd Raphael, editor-in-chief of recruiting site ere.net, said employers had a good reason to look as closely at your tweets as your resume; those 140 characters can be revealing.

“Recruiters use them to see what someone’s skills are, but more so what they’re really like,” Mr Raphael said. “They find out if someone’s an optimist, a complainer, a whiner, a fascinating person, a snobby elitist, a bore, a downer, a passionate person, and so on.”

Blake Haggerty, a recruiter at software company CoreOS, didn’t submit a resume when he was hired a year ago. Still, he advised against tearing it up altogether.

“It is important probably for certain industries and certain companies,” he said. “It may be difficult to get into a giant consulting firm or some giant bank without a resume.”

Mr Raphael agreed, saying the resume was still a good marketing tool and a starting point for evaluation.

“Why the need to ban them? View them for what they are: marketing documents put together by someone marketing oneself.”

This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission.

Originally published as Employers ‘couldn’t care less’ about your CV