Traditional resumes are boring. They become stale and out-of-date, they can't really showcase your work or achievements, and they end up just sitting in the bottom of someone's inbox. A paper resume, while professional, doesn't really let an employer get to know you. Many sites are trying to solve the problems of traditional resumes by providing job seekers a new way to stand out in the crowd.
Believe it or not, Careerbuilder.com has a couple of different ways to get noticed in non-traditional ways. The first is CBVideo Resume. This is perfect for those who have thought if you could just get an interview, you could definitely get the job. The CB Video Resume site offers some standard "Do's and Don'ts" for the creation of a Video Resume (Don't Read from a Script, Don't Dress Casually, Don't Tell Your Life Story...Do Be Precise, Do Introduce Yourself, Do Use a Tripod, etc.), then the process is as simple as browsing for your video file and uploading it to the CB servers. Each user is allowed one video and the file can be up to 50 MB in size. The site accepts many different file types, including 3gp; .3g2; .asf; .avi; .dv; .flv; .m4v; .mov; .mpg; .mpg2; .mpeg; .mpeg2; .mpeg4; .mp4; .qt; .wmv; .asf; .mp3; .wav; .wma .
Another Careerbuilder property, CBWorkSpace allows you to create what is essentially a web page about you and your achievements. Sample templates are available to choose from, although it's hard to imagine who is using the hot pink one besides those applying for work in the cosmetics industry.
Each template allows you to include an introduction, your resume, a photo of yourself, and a projects section where you can go into detail about work you're especially proud of. Career seekers can highlight a project or two on their Intro page to generate interest.
Monster has introduced an online profile "beta" which is a personal page on Monster where you can share your skills, experience, and interests. After filling out the details, you can choose to set the profile to "public" and create a custom web address for the page.
Monster Profiles allow you to fill out a personal summary, an employment summary, an awards/accolades section, an about me section, and a links section called "as seen on the web," which allows you to link to other websites of note. You can even add tags to your profile to make it easier for others to find your page on Monster. However, the Monster profile page is nowhere near as rich or as visually appealing as Careerbuilder's CBWorkSpace web sites. It was difficult to even find any public ones in use "in the wild", but here's one example.
Jobster is a social network/job seeking web site that offers a way to create an online profile that includes the usual info, plus allows for photo uploads and videos. Like Monster, users can tag their profiles with skill tags and list links to other sites, too.
One of jobster's nice features is that it allows you to import details from facebook and LinkedIn. Acknowledging its niche in the web community, jobster offers a facebook-like news feed of network news, a network of friends, and a way to post your jobster info on your facebook profile with one-click. There's also a jobster facebook app.
However, this site strives to fill the space in between the professional network, LinkedIn, and the friendly, social network of facebook, almost like what a mashup of those two would produce. The world may not be ready for that yet.
It seems almost unnecessary to mention LinkedIn, as their inclusion in this list is so obvious, but it's worth pointing out that they have been leaders in the online job seeking space when it comes to new ways of self-promotion using the web. LinkedIn users can craft their own public profile and add people to their professional network by searching their former companies for colleagues or importing their address book. You can see what companies are hiring, if you know anyone there, and get introduced through mutual friends to people who can help you get your foot in the door.
Despite this, the question remains - how many people are really getting jobs from LinkedIn? If anything the network is functioning as a way to professionally socialize with professional associates who have no business seeing that photo of you (you know the one) on facebook.
If you're comfortable enough that your facebook profile is clean and sparkly and your friends won't upload embarrassing photos from last night's party, the social network actually offers several applications that let you post your resume to your profile (in addition to jobster's, mentioned above):
Slates: the Slates app lets you express yourself by writing a blog, book, document, resume or CV, etc. and share it. You can choose to publish or keep it private.
Professional Profile: This app lets you create a professional profile on facebook. You can either upload your resume or import your LinkedIn profile and recommendations. You can also get recommendations from friends and see resumes in your network.
My Resume: A simple app that lets you upload your existing resume and post it to your profile. Your friends, in theory, could then submit it to their place of work.
EasyCV Curriculum Vitae: Easy CV is an add-on to the online resume service easy-cv.com. It adds a short view of your CV on your profile and a dedicated page and the resume is available in PDF, MS Word or video.
Resume Central: Resume Central allows you to share your resume with your future boss, your friends or anybody else looking to hire on facebook.
New to this field is VisualCV. With an online resume at VisualCV, you can showcase your work in a visually appealing way. Although VisaulCV may sound like they're just jobster, version 2, take note - VisualCV already has 50 participating companies onboard receiving VisualCVs and their names may surprise you.
With a VisualCV you not only create an online version of your resume, but you can also embed photos, a portfolio of work samples, videos, letters of recommendation, charts and graphs highlighting achievements, and more.
VisualCV offers a unique feature that lets you track who views your profile after you've shared it, but unlike resumes you post on other job sites, VisualCV's members have more control over their resume's privacy - there are no backdoors for recruiters or marketers to access your resume.
You can also create multiple versions of your resume for different audiences – prospective employers, colleagues, customers, partners and friends - and tailor each one specifically to that purpose. You don't have to be a job seeker to find this useful. A VisualCV can be used to build and maintain a professional profile for times when a bio of sorts is needed as a summary of work and not as a standard career-seeker's resume.
Who Will See Your VisualCV?
VisualCV has over 50 participating companies registered on VisualCV.com to receive VisualCVs from interested candidates, including some names you might know:
Acronis, Alarm.com, Approva, Bridge Bank, BroadSoft, buySafe, Centrifuge Systems, Clearaudit, Clearspring, Content Analyst, Corporate Executive Board, Customer Value Partners (CVP), Dahl-Morrow International, EnterpriseDB, Federated Media, GlobalLogic, Grotech, Heidrick & Struggles, HireStrategy, Intel Community Enterprise Solutions, Intridea, IP Systems, Iron Mountain, JackBe, Kastle Systems, Lagan, LeverPoint, LOCRIS Limited, Maplewood Park Place, MicroStrategy, Objective Paradigm, Parature, Perot Systems, Razorsight, Rivermine, Rollstream, SE Solutions, SI International, Siperian, Social & Scientific Systems, Sourcefire, Talent Intelligence, Taylor Winfield, The Buller Group, The Heiden Group, Total Training, Inc., Valhalla Partners, VeriSign , VisualCV.
VisualCV members can passively and privately register their interest with a particular company by sharing a VisualCV with a company member of the system. An employer then knows which members are interested and can come back to those VisualCV members when they have an open position.
There are many resources on the web to create non-traditional resumes, however whether companies will accept them and whether they really help you get noticed remains to be seen. Still, when you're in need of work, the more places you can advertise yourself, the better.
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you can also check-out zapoint.com which has a visual way of representing a resume and a person's experience. I'm surprised you didn't mention it.
Posted by: sergiu | February 13, 2008 4:50 PMJobfox and NotchUp are other players in this space.
Posted by: dave | February 13, 2008 4:53 PMIt's great to see innovative new entrants in what seemingly is a crowded field. However, one thing that isn't really available among the offerings reviewed above is data portability. From a candidate's perspective a resume is a marketing piece. From an employer or recruiter's standpoint, a resume is a starting point for the collection of a richer set of data to evaluate the candidate. So even a universal resume isn't poised to eliminate tiresome "apply-on-line" forms since a broader collection of data than found on a resume is required. While you might not be able to eliminate these application processes totally, you can make them a lot easier for a candidate by giving them a means to "pre-populate" the employer application with the resume data. So here's hoping that some of the growing demand for data portability among social network sites will spill over into recruiting and job search.
Posted by: Chuck Allen | February 13, 2008 6:31 PMWelcome to the Web2.0 job search. But what about NotchUp?
Posted by: Fabian Schonholz | February 13, 2008 7:26 PMI used a great site... Emurse.com
Posted by: Christopher Mesa | February 13, 2008 8:18 PMI put in the data and it organized everything for me. I exported to PDF to send to potential employers. Also I wrote my own URL on the back of business cards so an employer can view my resume and emurse tracks who and when people view your resume, so I know if he is serious about considering me as a candidate.
Check out my resume http://chrismesa.emurse.com/
That's a nice list. There are more and more tools for job seekers, and now, on the opposite side, there are also new tools that are appearing, geared towards employers. For example, Standout Jobs
Posted by: Charles | February 13, 2008 8:50 PMI'm going to have to say that notchup stands to be a disruptor in this space. It has the opportunity for companies to recruit people who are otherwise happy with their jobs.
Posted by: Michael Lambie | February 14, 2008 12:20 AMDisclaimer: I have no connection with the company below, other than that I subsribe to their RSS feed.
Yesterday, I noticed an interesting post in Reader, which included:
==================================
A couple years ago, we put up a blog post on the Union Square Ventures weblog and said that we wanted to hire an analyst. The deal was simple - no phone calls, no resumes, no emails - just a link to your web presence. We hired Andrew as a result of that effort and it was a great fit for everyone.
So we are doing the exact same thing again. [...]
Posted by: Mark Harrison | February 14, 2008 12:59 AMI have been on both sides of this question recently. I do not know anyone in a traditional corporation that would take the time to watch a video of a proposed candidate. Most of the time, hiring managers will not even go past the first page of a printed resume or one "page down" on an online resume. For this to change, the whole process would need to change.
The idea behind the resume is to get the interview, because the interview is where you deal with a difficult situation and the interviewer can direct the interview where they see fit. Sometimes an answer can lead to different questions than what was originally planned.
LinkedIn is a different idea. There your network gets you the contacts that you may require for a new job. I had one recruiter contact me because of our connection on LinkedIn. As the site gains in popularity, I am sure it will get more traction in the job search space.
Posted by: Rob Diana | February 14, 2008 3:08 AMMy advice would be to start a blog on your experiences, feelings or opinions on your chosen profession. Showing that you are passionate and that you about your chosen subject is what employers want to see and something that you won't get across easily in whatever form of CV you choose.
A blog can be unique (unlike any of these CV templates) as well as a useful insight into the way you think, the kind of person you are and many other qualities that prospective employers will be looking for.
Once you have the blog in place, you do have to get the URL in front of employers for them to take notice, and I guess this is where some of the above services may come into play, as well as a traditional CV.
My experience with this? I've got two jobs through employers being impressed with my blog and my friend is on the cusp of a job offer due to a blog of his. Try it!
Posted by: Phil Nash | February 14, 2008 5:54 AMCome on, Blogsumes are the way to go.
Posted by: Michael Vu | February 14, 2008 6:20 AMIf you're looking for the more traditional resume with online tracking/downloading/etc, check out our site, Emurse.com.
Chuck -- you are spot on, and there are efforts in this direction. hResume is a microformat markup for online resume and there is also HR-XML. LinkedIn fully supports hResume, we support it in places and I believe SimplyHired was working on the standard as well. Last I spoke with Steve Ganz (linkedin), the three of us were going to get together to try and formalize the standard once and for all. We all share the belief that its the users data, not ours. Hopefully these new companies do as well.
HR-XML has been around for a 'long' while now and is widely supported by most ATS systems. We support hr-xml fully on our backend and make it available to various partners. hResume is something that will be much more job seeker friendly, however.
Chris -- thanks for the kind words. Drop me a line if you need anything!
Regarding video resumes/blogsumes/what-have-yous, they'll work great in some industries, but I question efforts to "reinvent" something that's been time tested and is largely preferred by almost all recruiters. Imagine you are a hiring manager with mere seconds to evaluate a ton of candidates - are you going to prefer to watch a video, or scan a one page document? There's a reason resumes have worked for 100+ years.
We've done quite a bit of research into it, and what we found was that people using some of these techniques end up having to create a one page resume at some point in the process anyhow. Then again, there's nothing wrong with supplemental materials if/when they can help!
Posted by: Alex Rudloff | February 14, 2008 6:45 AMI blogged about this today--many of these sites are great but there are two key things to remember:
1) Most companies won't even touch video resumes for legal reasons. I don't really see that changing here in the U.S.
2) All of these sites are great tools to consider, but remember, in order to get the job, you have to get out from behind your computer and build relationships and have conversations!
Check out my post: http://www.susanstrayer.com/kaleidoblog/
Posted by: Susan Strayer | February 14, 2008 8:59 AMAlex,
Good points. Microformats are the obvious way to structure browser-consumable resume data so that they may be searched, indexed, mashedup, imported by other sites, etc. LinkedIn is to be commended for taking the leap with hResume (creating 9+ million hResumes overnight). The Microformat community's leaders also are smart and disciplined about "keeping it simple". That said, I'm not sure that hResume by itself is really is up to handling the "pre-populated employment application" use case that would make life easier for job seekers. There's an esoteric HR category of software/service called a "Resume Parser." These are growing in sophistication. They handle things such as translating skill descriptions in a source resume to the employer's own terms/taxonomy. This is a somewhat odd software category, but in watching the trends there, I think what you really have is an example of "semantic middleware." These can be invoked as a web service called when a candidate uploads a resume or perhaps when recruiter points the application to an online hResume. As you point out, HR-XML doesn't come into play so much on the browser-consumable side as in the backend (e.g., a parser web service would return HR-XML that would be used to pre-populate the application form). All major Resume parsers today support HR-XML. It would be nice if you could skip this piece and have the hResume handle everything -- but it is not going to happen. You are expecting too much from a data format (this coming from a guy quite invested in developing data formats). There is more involved - the semantic negotiation/interpretation step.
The main point I want to make is that hResume is helpful. Increased adoption of it is good, but the resume parsing technology is here and now. More candidate intake processes should include this technology. More candidate venues (the resume sites reviewed above) and applicant tracking systems and employer portals should make this seamless for candidates.
Posted by: Chuck Allen | February 14, 2008 9:30 AMOnline resumes are a logical idea, but is there any data on how many employers are willing to accept an online replacement for the paper resume?
Posted by: RianIt’s important to keep an eye on these new technologies, because they may eventually replace resumes as we know them.
Could video and web resumes reveal a lot of information about a job candidate that many hiring people would rather not know up front – age, ethnicity, size, accent, and so on? It seems like a minefield of potential discrimination claims.
If you’re going to do a video resume, make sure you look, act, and sound professional. When we see a person in a suit onscreen, we expect a poised and professional TV newscaster, not just a regular person sitting in front of a potted palm. Even if you’re well spoken and attractive, you might not measure up to someone with extensive broadcast training, not to mention professional hairstyling, makeup, and lighting.
Posted by: Julie O'Malley, CPRW | February 14, 2008 10:16 AMOne thing that I don't see in this discussion is the use of E-Recruitment software. Several vendors (e.g. Taleo, Kenexa Brassring) will take a resume formatted in Word or the like, and will then parse out the text into standard fields.
Many newer companies may be more advanced than this, or perhaps they're more open to more sophisticated documents, but the Word document resume still has a lot of life in it in many companies.
Posted by: Mark DykemanMark Dykeman Author wrote:
> Several vendors (e.g. Taleo, Kenexa Brassring) will take a
> resume formatted in Word or the like, and will then parse
> out the text into standard fields.
Exactly - These are two HR-XML charter members and certified companies that use resume parsers (I believe third-party) to handle candidate intake. Although its not online, there is actually a great article that came out this week in SHRM's Staffing Management magazine that discusses these processes.
Posted by: Chuck Allen | February 14, 2008 11:36 AMAnother up and coming player is www.GlobalPitch.com
The way candidates present themselves is definitely shifting in this direction.
Posted by: bcohen01 | February 14, 2008 11:51 AMAll of the site aboves are pretty unique although the video resume one will not make it. VR's are just a fad. But the flip side...employers showcasing their culture via video and audio is gaining momentum. Jobs in Pods is a good example of that.
Posted by: Jobs in Pods | February 14, 2008 11:58 AMI co-founded Stream-People.com way back in 2004. We developed something called as AVREX (Audiovisual Resume) w/ personalized HR interview builder.
We close down by early 2006. Perhaps we were ahead of time or this broadband infrastructure was not the best (in India) and definitely “GetSocial. BeOpen” concept was not yet born.
DBaishya
p.s.: I will be following these companies’ growth over next couple of years.
Posted by: DBaishya | February 14, 2008 7:39 PMLet me add that when I mentioned "...“GetSocial. BeOpen” concept was not yet born...” I was talking about pre-facebook era.
Posted by: DBaishya | February 14, 2008 7:47 PMRelated to this, Michele Martin has a great series over at The Bamboo Project on Job Searching the Web 2.0 Way.
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff Cobb | February 16, 2008 6:42 AMRelated to this, Michele Martin has a great series over at The Bamboo Project on Job Searching the Web 2.0 Way.
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff Cobb | February 17, 2008 4:37 AM