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Ask HN: Is the Resume Dead or Not?

1 points by vfulco2 ↗ HN
I keep hearing on various sites about this document not being used. But in most business circles I am involved in (online and IRL), it is one of the primary things asked for from candidates. Short video interviews are a thing (especially in Asia) but still in infancy. No one has come up with a worthy alternative. What is your experience?

Full disclosure: I run a professional services firm offering English resume creation, LinkedIn profile creation/enhancement and interview coaching. Asking the question so I can gather research on new ways companies are seeking out candidates.

2 comments

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mtmail
Still used in Germany though I see more PDFs than the printed out version. Here it's custom to have a photo of the candidate, more pages and written former employer' reference letters. The latter have very specific phrasing were usually every sentence can be mapped to a grade. E.g. praising the employee to be super friendly towards suppliers and collegues isn't enough, the author left out management so that's a sign of a troublemaker (it's a complex nuanced system). Bigger companies start to require filling everything from the resume into their online system so the internal recruiters have it easier searching. I hear it's annoying for candidates to follow all the step. At the same time I don't think that can be automated.
vfulco2
Thank you for perspective. In China, the picture is still used and external headhunters ask for MS Word versions so they can modify job seekers' documents often without them knowing.

It's an editors greatest wish for the business world to move to PDFs then I could use markdown/LaTex all the time.