Origins (and future) of the Résumé
While applying for jobs recently, I’ve been spending lots of time writing and rewriting résumés but it’s hard to evaluate if there’s even much of a payoff for that time invested, and the feeling that this short, almost meaningless document is the only thing sitting between me and a supposed dream job. So where did the tradition of sending out short blurbs come from? And could it be that we’re far enough along to change the established quo of sending out just a tiny piece of our past (and almost nothing about our potential) to prospective employers?
So etymology wise, résumé comes from French, the noun use of past participle of résumer, “to sum up”. Usage wise, there are a few accounts online crediting Leonardo da Vinci for writing the first résumé in 1482, in an attempt to gain patronage to a certain Ludovico Sforza. This seems absurd, since I’m sure letters written in such a way to gain patronage were fairly commonplace among artists and makers of the Renaissance, and it would be normal to include a list of past works and acheivements. Following da Vinci’s submission, there were pretty much 500 years of stagnation until the Digital Age source where résumés start to then mirror digital advancement - picking up interactivity with sites like Prezi or Youtube, optimization (in terms of SEO and against Applicant Tracking Systems), and as applicant pools grew wider and wider, résumé text blurbs shrank to short snippets and bite-sized tweets - with each bullet point following a format of Problem * Solution * Result.
Clearly, the résumé continues to evolve alongside digital trends and shortening attention spans, so what’s next? It seems that the current process of building a résumé is very much a manual thing, so are there possibilities for autogeneration (maybe only some parts) which would allow the job seeker freedom from a useless skill? To clarify, being able to effectively communicate (whether through a résumé or some other doc) is valueable, but keeping up with the trends in formatting, sentence structure patterns, and creative ways to bypass ATS systems (a white/invisible section of keywords) is distinctly separate from being able to communicate effectively. With google releasing user search history, and the boom of open sourced NLP, a possibility for smart systems that import and analyze that history to formulate and then create a useful profile on someone as an employee is certainly within reach.
Functionally, this proposed system can make use of clustered searches to identify and extract topics, building a tree/forest of interests. These interests can then be matched up against broad job descriptions and can be searchable to give employers a grasp on what the prospect has searched for. The key idea is that with the ubiquity of information, any idea, or technology is generally only a search away from being put to use. Learning and mastering skills in today’s world is equivalent to knowing the key resources online that provide details on implementation or the process behind the skill, and then spending the time to practice. I don’t believe this system proposes to outright replace the current form of job seeking, but it can provide a useful perspective on the potential of an employee, which can prove to be useful when sifting through the mass of entry level applicants.
So, let’s build it! More to come…