In an era of online portfolios and networking on social media sites, are résumés a thing of the past?
“Yes,” said Jeanine Tanner “J.T.” O’Donnell, a career coach, workplace consultant and founder of Careerealism. “To me, a résumé in the early stage of students’ careers—while they are still in college—is useless.”
O’Donnell runs a year-round internship program and says she’s been extremely successful in choosing candidates without the use of a résumé. “For the kind of candidate I desire—proactive, smart, resourceful, well-read, passionate, accountable—I want to see their thought process. So, I use behavioral interviewing extensively, in both the written—application sent to me—and verbal—group interview with their peers and myself—forms.”
The application process is extremely straightforward. Students provide their names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, college majors and written answers to 10 essay questions.
“The 10 questions weeds out any lazy candidates who just want to send in a résumé. If you want the internship with us, you'll write great answers to the questions,” said O’Donnell. “Second, the answers tell me a ton about how you look at work and the best way to approach it. I can tell from these questions what kind of person you will be like to work with and whether or not you will fit our corporate culture. Finally, it's a test in communication. For what we do, I need people who can articulate themselves well in the written form—this type of application weeds out those who just don't have the skills.”
But, those truly aren’t the only reasons O'Donnell makes young professionals answer essay questions instead of turning in a résumé. “When you put that much time into an application and were brave enough to put that time in knowing you might not get the job, then I know you really want the job, and you'll do what it takes to get it and keep it. That has been proven to me repeatedly in the last two years I've been running the program,” she said.
A few of the questions she asks, which very well could pop up during interviews at any organization, are:
- Why are you seeking an internship right now?
- Give three reasons why you are a good fit for this job and provide specific, detailed examples to
- support your reasons.
- What is the biggest mistake you’ve made in your life and what did you learn from it?
- What is your personal achievement are you most proud of and why?
“I get fewer candidates applying for my internship, which is good—less time spent reviewing applicants. Better still, the caliber of talent is 100 times what other internship programs get,” said O’Donnell.
Comments
I can attest to the fact that this process weeds the lazy ones out right off the bat. It took me over 6 days to answer those questions. I had to answer, rethink my answer, and then rethink it again. It made me think about myself, and the internship opportunity itself and how much I really wanted it. By the time I finished the questions I was completely dedicated to doing what ever was necessary to get this position.
Most people think of the possibility of failure and say to themselves "I don't want to do all that work and not get the job". And those are the people that employers don't want to hire. There may be many of times in your career that you spend days, maybe even weeks on a project and have it completely rejected, for whatever reason. To be able to fail, and come back the next time with the determination to succeed is a quality that every employer wants to see in their employees.
I happen to live in Silicon Valley and have never understood this about local employers and resumes. Becoming a manager didn't help any, and I didn't want to exacerbate this problem either which is why I don't readily welcome nor send resumes.
So here we live in this part of the world that prides itself on defining the future. We're all about New Economy, new ways of doing things, new business practices, new technology. If we're all about the new, new thing, why then do we insist that people who want to join us must speak of the old?
In other words, if interview time is limited and employers claim they want to separate highly motivated achievers from wannabees, why do Silicon Valley employers insist on a document that says "Here's what I did for others" INSTEAD OF "Here's what I can do for you?"
In these fast changing times, resumes are most definitely obsolete. Resumes are fine if you like to keep living in the past. Of course, that may surprise you when employers claim they want people who are committed to lifelong learning. If that is true, then it's time to present to them new, new things that describe what you and they will do together.
If Silicon Valley is the birthplace of the demise of the resume, I'm happy. Meanwhile, I love being able to land jobs WITHOUT resumes, and to insist as a manager that anyone who wants to work for me must express so using any other means besides resumes.
I think the idea is a good one. The only question becomes - at what point in the courtship of matching a new team member with an organization is this appropriate? If you have a full job description, and your website really portrays your organization, then there is probably enough information for asking for this kind of disclosure. If like so many job postings, there is little, this smacks of asking someone asking you on a date to drop their pants before giving them your phone number. At least it is not a blood test right off the bat.
On the other hand if you have put the time to properly disclose/expose your organization and hiring group, this seems a fair trade in trying to 'hurry' the courtship along with proper due diligence of trying to get to a wedding without a shotgun in the background.
And of course this is for a unique situation of an internship, where the applicant is not expected to have years of experience, but years of vision looking forward.
Once again, one tool does not fit all, so we keep adding new tools to get the job done better for each new project.
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