Born to be More than Just a Resumé

As a warm blooded mammal of sorts with empathy and the ability to think (most of the times),  I’d like to believe that when it comes to career, we’re more than just some words on a paper. More than a digital accumulation of business stuff, which will in essence, help to determine where on the food chain we will reside. Shouldn’t we have evolved to something more than a document? I‘m not looking for flying cars, hover boards and jet packs…PEOPLE!!! Oh, wait, we do have those, but we still lack a better way to represent ourselves for one of the most trajectory altering endeavors.

Are we just getting sold for our parts?

Let's face it, there's a big disconnect between the tools we use in job finding, and the tools employers use in job placement. And it's not just a slight technological disconnect, it's an essential disconnect from the core. The current job platforms parse and pull keywords from resumés which can amount to people being sold for their parts. If you have the right display of particular skills, at the right time, the universe can seem to favor you. However, if you don’t, or had a slight miscalculation on your description/keywords, the gods’ of hiring might strike thee down with great vengeance and furious anger (thanks Pulp Fiction!). There are tools and websites just to beat the system and put your resume on top?! An entire industry built around scamming companies to people and people to companies.. And imagine, there are services that would handsomely charge you to write that piece of paper on your behalf. If the world has an acne problem, we can not fix it by more make up!

Stop being a nameless, shapeless, voiceless, paper with words on it

Due to the massive undertaking by businesses to go through applicants, software is utilized to allow for a quick filtration of keywords, providing a relatively speedy shortlist of candidates for any particular position. The software’s algorithm is very surgical in nature and will never fully account for the qualities necessary to assess the strength of a candidate. So many ideal candidates are eliminated from the pool of applications within seconds. According to Inc.com, “On average, every corporate job opening attracts 250 resumes” which seems like a very conservative estimate.

Job seekers and businesses alike are looking to use their resources wisely to bring in the best and brightest. However, the current system is flawed and when a new employee has to be let go, due to a mismatch, there’s a huge cost to it. Since most companies do not have systems in place to track exit costs most of the loss is not recorded. Some cost factors include:

• The cost of hiring a new employee including the advertising, interviewing, screening, and hiring.
• Cost of on-boarding a new person, including training and management time.
• Lost productivity — it may take a new employee one to two years to reach the productivity of an existing person.
• Lost engagement — other employees who see high turnover tend to disengage and lose productivity.
• Customer service and errors — for example new employees take longer and are often less adept at solving problems.
• Training cost — for example, over two to three years, a business likely invests 10 to 20 percent of an employee’s salary or more in training
• Cultural impact — whenever someone leaves, others take time to ask why.

So let’s get this correct people! and use a newer system to assess a candidates worth and then display their value to prospective businesses. Einstein said it best “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” We at JobzMall have taken on this challenge and have come up with a solution to offer job seekers a strong tech-forward way of representing their true value to employers. By leveraging technology and creating transparency for businesses and job seekers, it will start to humanize the job search experience. Thus adding a voice, face, personality and value proposition to both job seekers and businesses alike.

We were NOT born to be a piece of paper!!! RIP Resumés!!!!