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Some companies do away with resumes

Posted on January 24th, 2012 Read time: 1 minutes

More and more, companies' HR administration departments are bypassing job applicants' resumes in favor of more interactive elements to determine their suitability for a job, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Primarily, managers are asking for links to profiles on social media sites such Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, with the resume becoming an optional attachment.

"A resume doesn't provide much depth about a candidate," Christina Cacioppo, an associate at New York-based venture capital firm Union Square Ventures, told the news source. "We are most interested in what people are like, what they are like to work with, how they think."

Union Square is interested in applicants' web presence, and also requires a short video demonstrating their interest.

The news source notes that given the nation's high unemployment rate, bypassing resumes can be an effective way for companies to differentiate top applicants from a broad application pool.

Another example of the anti-resume tactic was seen in a six-week program launched by gaming company IGN, called Code-Foo. Nearly 30 people were chosen for the coding internship, several of whom had "thin" resumes but responded well to online challenges set by the company to gauge their thought process.
 

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