Listen up folks. The resume is not going anywhere. It may change a little for instance, like LinkedIn  or About.Me but the resume is not going anywhere anytime soon. Sorry if you don’t believe me but try to get a job without one, even if you get an offer, at some point they will require a resume.

For the sake of this article, “resume” includes your traditional resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile and social media activity.

And in this SUPER connected world of social media , social recruiting, social investigations, social connectivity, and social communications; your resume is your brand message to the world. How your resume looks and reads are instrumental to your career success. Great companies want great people with great personalities and influence. But that’s if you want to be great.

My friend Michael Haberman an HR Consultant and Professor of HR in Atlanta, who is an expert in all things HR Compliance and Labor Relations, recently  schooled me on something known as “Reputation Capital” which is a concept that suggests in the near future companies will hire you based on your social influence – meaning your online presence and activity. You can read more about it here on Michael’s website “OmegaHRSolutions.”

So, what does that have to do with the resume? Glad you asked. It only has EVERYTHING to do with your resume. When you submit your resume to a company or a friend to pass to the hiring manager, the first thing they do is look at it and judge you… (does evaluate sound better? Okay they evaluate you then). And here’s what they are looking for.

• Is it attractive? Not Beyonce or Henry Cavill attractive but does it have a pleasing design? Hell, does it have any design? Does it have a proper format? Are the bullet points aligned? Are the sentences structured properly? Does it have a style; functional, chronological, reverse-chronological or Hybrid?

• Does it make sense? Are the dates of employment in order? Do the job titles match the job duties? Do the duties match the titles? Does it tell a story? Does it clearly define the problem you can solve for the employer? Does use the most recent industry jargon?

• Is it true? Sometimes people tend to over inflate…embellish…or down right lie on their resumes, so naturally employers want to know if the applicant is telling the truth.

If your resume happens to pass the first test “attractiveness” then Recruiters and Hiring Authorities are using social media to research and perform background checks to investigate numbers 2 & 3. They are cross referencing your resume and your LinkedIn account with your Facebook and Twitter interactions. “I don’t use Facebook and Twitter” you say, so you think you are safe, right? No sir or ma’am – employers are more and more suspicious of the non-social candidate as well.

A hiring decision is a costly one – it represents a huge investment. Every employer wants to hire someone that they feel they know and can trust. They want to make sure there is nothing to hide and that you are open to investigation.  Having a great resume opens the door to more scrutiny and you have to be able to withstand the investigation into your social identity – this is not a bad thing, if you play your cards right you can “leverage your social gravity” into landing the perfect job. You can use this to your advantage by maintaining a great professional package starting with your resume.

 

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