When Sarah Peck pursued a job opportunity at One Month — a Noho-based online school for entrepreneurs — she didn’t submit a resume. The 32-year-old didn’t need one to score an interview.
“We had three or four hourlong meetings,” the Clinton Hill resident says. “Each time it was like diving deep into an idea, like marketing strategy and course development strategy.”
After six different meetings, the former freelancer had to work for 30 days on a project as a test drive before she earned her offer as director of communications in December 2014.
Peck gained entry based on her skills and strengths shown in the interview process, not a bullet-point list on a piece of paper.
“I didn’t even notice that they hadn’t asked for a resume,” she says. “My work was online, and they’d seen what I could do through my project experience and reputation.”
Why the switch from the norm?
One Month’s CEO and co-founder, Mattan Griffel, says the resume — which is currently optional for candidates to submit when applying online — just isn’t useful.
I end up ignoring the resume entirely. It’s this walled garden
- One Month CEO Mattan Griffel
“I end up ignoring the resume entirely,” he says. “It’s this walled garden … If you’re going to mention a project on your resume, I want to click to explore more.”
It’s a new trend in hiring, with employers giving more weight to a candidate’s interview performance and social media presence than his or her career timeline on a piece of paper.
Doug Bernstein, VP of programming and analytics at Bleacher Report, a sports website based in Midtown, agrees. “The person is more important than the paper,” he says.
While candidates apply to Bleacher Report by submitting their resumes and cover letters, the system requests links to their Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram accounts, too.
“The resume may get a two-second look, and the cover letter and Twitter profile gets a good minute, two minutes — however long it takes,” he says.
He relies heavily on social media to learn what a candidate’s really about. “Is what [he or she is] posting in line with what we’re creating, with a similar voice and style? We want people who really get it.”
And cover letters become more important than ever.
One recent candidate was a reporter from the University of Kansas who wrote in his cover letter about how he diligently waited for three hours outside a top basketball player’s dorm room. His dedication earned him an interview with the now-star of the Philadelphia 76ers, Joel Embiid, about his decision to enter the NBA draft — before the candidate’s competition.
“That ended up becoming a big story,” Bernstein says. “He’s willing to stay late and do whatever it takes.” And yes, he got the job at Bleacher Report.
Todd Raphael, editor-in-chief of recruiting site ere.net, says employers have a good reason to look as closely at your tweets as your resume: Those 140 characters can reveal a lot about you.
“Recruiters use them to see what someone’s skills are, but more so what they’re really like,” he says. “They find out if someone’s an optimist, a complainer, a whiner, a fascinating person, a snobby elitist, a bore, a downer, a passionate person, and so on.”
Blake Haggerty, a recruiter at Midtown-based software company CoreOS, didn’t submit a resume when he was hired a year ago. Still, he doesn’t recommend you delete your resume altogether.
“It is important probably for certain industries and certain companies,” he says. “It may be difficult to get into a giant consulting firm or some giant bank without a resume.”
Raphael agrees that it’s still a good marketing tool and a starting point for evaluation.
“Why the need to ban them? View them for what they are: marketing documents put together by someone marketing oneself.”