We've spoken about the death of cover letters (RIP), now let's talk about the unavoidable rite of passage in job hunting: THE RESUME! (or, résumé if you're fancy) *cue ominous rumbling thunder⚡* 📄 Are resumes dead? Absolutely. When job ads are attracting thousands of applicants, and the average resume garners just 7.4 seconds of the recruiter's attention, it's clear resumes aren't really fulfilling their intended purpose. At best, they're a waste of time. At worst, they're to blame for crappy hiring decisions. It's time to rethink our approach. ⏳ A Brief History of Wasted Time Resumes haven't changed in decades... but the world has. They used to be helpful when small-town recruiters were familiar with all the schools and employers getting name-dropped by applicants. But that doesn't scale because recruiters have familiarity bias, so candidates from lesser-known places are overlooked even if they're better. That's why even industry giants like the CEO of Recruit (Glassdoor and Indeed's parent company) have called resumes obsolete. 🔬 What Science Says A century of research tells us the most accurate predictors of job performance are: 1. Work samples (29%) 2. Cognitive assessments (26%) 3. Structured interviews (26%) None of the datapoints on a typical resume are anywhere near as accurate when it comes to forecasting on-the-job success. In fact, they're no better than random selection. 🧐 The Persistence Paradox Despite their ineffectiveness, resumes cling to life in our hiring processes. Why? It's the "everyone does it this way" syndrome. We all assume they wouldn't be the status quo if they didn't work. But when 88% of resumes are immediately discarded, shouldn't we question this habit? 🎯 Cutting Through the Fluff Resumes are minefields of bias, easily manipulated, and poor indicators of actual ability. They waste time for both applicants and recruiters. Meanwhile, many AI screening tools are low quality too, focusing on the wrong datapoints (like age) and filtering out potential stars. ❓Question to you: do you believe resumes really work, or are they just a comfortable habit? 👇
I also feel like the science of cognitive tests is ineffective, time consuming, and boring. It comes off as a lazy way of filtering candidates. The real predictor would be attitude (can be deduced from an interview) and a mock work environment. I know that I can handle sales very well even within a 3 month period. I worked for a company remotely for 2 months and gave them over 50 active leads! I quit because there was little to no backend support! They barely understood the African market and my suggestions were just shelved. Who needs to answer 50questions in 10minutes to know how to sell? Even with a 70% score you still say we are not qualified! Sometimes it seems like you have your own set of preffered persons! Just list it on the requirements so we can stop wasting our time.
Résumés aren't the issue. AI screening is the issue. Also, your cognitive testing is not the way forward either. You have folks stressing out as to when your coo will be in the mood to force your workforce to undergo another CCAT. Tell me I'm wrong
Your cognitive testing can be gotten over by AI tools too. 😂 On the other hand, are you guys still hiring the people who can solve 50 questions in 12 minutes ? Everyone does not have native in the language of the tests. In other words, you need to change your mindset not to be like classical resumes…
Crossover is a massive waste of time, its a bunch of pseudo scientific nonsense for jobs that don't exist. Just don't waste your time they're just building a database and, whilst it may add value to their business, it doesn't add value to anyone else.
A resume shows work history, but does not necessarily tell you how well a candidate performed in their previous role. Let’s say you are a restaurant manager looking to hire a grill cook. You may be enticed by a resume showing experience at a popular steakhouse… but how do you know from the resume that person wasn’t the worst grill cook they ever had? All this to say, I’m not sure that the resume is “dead,” exactly. But I do think that the onus is on the rest of the recruitment process to help candidates showcase their actual skills and ability, rather than relying on assumptions made from a one-page summary of a person’s life.
The recruitment process is beyond broken in majority of cases. In my career I only once went through a recruitment process that actually assessed my skills in a practical manner. Everything else was mostly hiring by "familiarity" - recruiters put value on companies I worked for. Then was just my skills of presenting myself at an interview, I could have pretty much throughout the entire process if I needed.
I've read many comments here and the majority of commenters disagree with Crossover and for good reasons, in my opinion. For me personally, if you put me into a timed test scenario i want to jump out of a window. I hate hate, hate timed tests and freeze up, I can't think. And as someone who works in user experience design I don't see the validity of a timed test. If anything we are encouraged to manage our schedules so that we can take the amount of time needed to design the most optimal solution. I'm going to happily stick with using my resume and cover letter as requested by employers everywhere.
Haha, well, I would say that resume is definitely not just about content and a list of accomplishments and experiences. It's also about the form. It's how you sell yourself as your key project. When you are really looking for a job, you yourself are your key project. If you want that specific position, the CV is often the first chance to prove it. It is a gateway to more qualitative communication. Sometimes every second CV is full of grammatical and factual errors, low-quality photos (better none), not to mention crazy formatting. If this is how candidates sell their key product - themselves, then that's really great!:) It's just everyone's small project and responsibility. No excuses. At a time when anyone, anywhere can download a clean, basic template for free (if nothing more), and an app or even a friend online can do the proofreading for you?! That's why I often value the right approach over long experience. And a CV can still reveal a lot. And then we verify the quality more deeply in assessments, structured interviews and practical tasks. And that is also not standard in companies, true. We do it, but it costs more money and time, and it can't be done with all 500 candidates😅
Cognitive assessments does not work, I tried to pass the one that you provided. Here are the reasons. 1. Test requires from candidate to be nearly a native speaker, some questions are hard to understand, and think about best synonyms, antonyms or acronyms. 2. Most of the questions are simple, you just have to spend a minute to think, and another 2 minutes to calculate, but you LITERALLY have 18 seconds per question. 3. Actual results. Think about another test, IQ test, it exists for more then 100 years, scientist trust it, it can be passed without language knowledge. I've got 111 points, and it is higher then average. However, according to your test, I am far behind average.
Administrative Assistant at AGM Mapsure Risk Management Consultants Pty Ltd
1moI've read this and some of the comments and guess what .. companies still want cover letters and résumés.. however what is not being discussed in detail..is the minute recruiters or even AI spots ones age it's a no go.. as a person of a certain age.. applying for positions..that you have experience and a proven track record.. you are overlooked. This is problematic because industries today make the older work force feel obsolete and guess who has the skill and practical know how ..it's the older workforce out here trying to hold on to our positions by up skilling our selves in order to stay relevant in our specific industries. It's the older workforce that stays loyal to companies however their loyalty is not reciprocated. The saying..if you want loyalty get a dog..comes to mind. I've seen what's out there with regards to the 'woke generation' and how companies pander to every whim .. makes no sense.. because no matter how you pander as a company..if they want to leave they will .. to companies out there think before you overlook the older workforce ..who is capable and willing.