Death to the Resume: Companies and Candidates Find New Ways to Connect

As our favorite former industry conference organizer recently noted, Leonardo da Vinci penned the first resume in 1482, and the tried-and-true CV has played a roll in hiring processes ever since. Despite their time-tested significance in the job market, resumes are flawed: People lie on them, and software programs have difficulty combing through raw documents to find a match. What’s more, they offer a rearview-mirror glimpse of what candidates have accomplished—not what they’re capable of in the future.

With so many alternative ways for employers and job seekers to communicate, is it time to sound the death knell for the resume? Shunning traditional resume models, companies and applicants are finding other ways to connect.

Last year, wireless network provider Enterasys was hiring for a six-figure job in social media—and refused to accept resumes. Instead, "candidates need to have a minimum Klout score above 60, a minimum Kred influence score of 725, a Kred outreach of at least eight, and more than 1,000 active Twitter followers in order to be considered," a company spokeswoman tells Business Insider.

TalentBin is one of several sites that allow employers to find "unfindable" candidates. The platform mines more than 100 websites to create a full picture of a person's professional and personal interests. Companies use the information to start conversations with potential hires, eschewing the need for job postings and resume submissions.

While not every company needs to hire social media aficionados, most—if not all—are seeking individuals who can help them with real business problems.

The 1-Page platform works with enterprises to create "challenges"—business problems that employers would like to solve. Candidates place themselves with a proposal and devise solutions that would give the company a competitive edge. 1-Page charges enterprises per challenge and provides the service for free to job seekers. "A resume begs a company to find a problem," 1-Page co-founder Joanna Weidenmiller tells Mashable. "A company can say, 'Oh you didn't do that!' Instead, a proposal says this is what I can do for you and if you say no, that's great. I'll go to your competition because I'm the one with the goods. I'm the one that has the ability that you need."

Similarly, PricewaterhouseCoopers built games into its recruiting process that test applicants on critical thinking, teamwork and communication. The professional services firm’s xTREME Games is designed for undergraduate accounting students to develop business skills needed to succeed at the company.

Other companies are designing their own challenges form employers to use. Knack produces games called Balloon Brigade, Wasabi and Words of Wisdom—all designed to analyze a player's conscientiousness, emotion recognition and other attributes that academic studies show correlate with job performance.

What other ways are employers and candidates connecting without a resume paper trail?

Photo: Can Stock