Trendspotting: The Paper Trail

By Angie Argabrite, Friday, March 16, 2012, at 9:01 am.

Might résumés be going the way of college applications—all digital and no longer printed out on paper heavy with hope? Yes and no. Though some companies are asking for links to a candidate’s Web presence in lieu of a résumé while others are requiring candidates complete online quizzes or challenges, most still anticipate the résumé as the centerpiece of any job application. Nevertheless, with so many bells and whistles at their fingertips, more applicants are seeing to it that even their paper résumé has a digital component. For example, résumés with QR codes that can be scanned by a smartphone to help recruiters find even more information. Employers, too, are using technology to sort through the crush of résumés. Both Starbucks and Procter & Gamble—which get millions of applications annually—employ tracking systems to review the documents and weed out the best candidates. If in doubt, candidates are advised to always print out a résumé and bring it along to a job interview. (Sound like a no-brainer? Plenty of millennials these days are forgetting them at home, to the dismay of their potential Gen X and boomer bosses.) Better yet, the likelihood that a résumé will make a splash grows exponentially when it’s tailored to an individual company. With teenage employment the lowest it’s been in decades but the overall 2012 job outlook brighter, the extra time a candidate spends customizing his or her qualifications will surely be well spent.

[Originally posted on Euro RSCG Worldwide's Social Life and Social Media site.]

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