Did you know that Leonardo Da Vinci is widely credited with the creation of one of the first written resumes? Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this Renaissance Era resume (aside from Da Vinci’s enormous skillset), is how closely it resembles its contemporary counterparts. In 500 years, the resume really hasn’t changed all that much. One might reasonably argue that this is not a good thing.
For all its apparent virtues, the resume really serves as a fairly limited metric for assessing the qualifications of candidates. A resume will tell you what a person has done, but it won’t tell you who they are. Even the scope of a candidate’s experience is typically pretty narrow in the context of a resume. Very often, job seekers have to whittle down entire careers onto a single 8.5” X 11” sheet of paper.
In the modern job market, the resume has become something of a necessary evil. Hiring managers do need some benchmark by which to determine who gets a call for an interview. Unfortunately, however, resumes often fail to be especially illuminating.
Let’s say Jane and John Doe both held the same position at the same insurance firm for the same amount of time. Jane was well-liked both by her fellow-employees and her superiors. She often made creative, valuable contributions to the team and, over the course of her tenure at the company, helped to grow her department’s sales figures by upwards of 10 percent.
John’s performance at the same company was generally adequate, but he was known for being difficult to work with. He carried out his job duties satisfactorily, but rarely made an effort to learn from his coworkers or otherwise expand his knowledge-base.
The trouble? In spite of their obvious differences, John and Jane could have resumes that look virtually identical. This is why it’s so important for candidates to focus on their accomplishments, rather than their experience, when drafting a resume.
At Contemporary Staffing Solutions, we’ve been connecting our client companies with qualified, thoroughly vetted candidates for over twenty years. We don’t just rely on a resume. We meet with candidates with every opportunity to make sure we not only understand their qualifications, but how their personality would best fit in our clients’ culture as well. Let’s work together to find the right person for the job today.