The New Job Application: No E-mail or Résumé
What's a job application without a résumé? What's a job posting that doesn't ask for one? Ask Aaron Strout. He's vice president of new media at Burlington, Mass.-based Mzinga, a firm that creates social networks and online communities for businesses.
He's looking for a PR director and a social media marketing manager, and these are his rules:
1. No resumes. At least not the kind written in MS Word.
2. If you want to get me your background, do it in the "community way." Either blog about why we should hire you or get me to your profile on LinkedIn (or your preferred social network.)
3. DON'T e-mail me. If you are a community-centric person, connect with me on Twitter or Facebook—you can DM me on Twitter or email me through Facebook.
Is this the future of job applications? The information and requirements are announced on Strout's Mzinga blog. He includes links (and shout-outs) to other bloggers he's referring to in the post. He links to his own social network profiles on Facebook and LinkedIn, and to his personal blog.
"Given the fact that we are a company focused on building community for other businesses, the thought occurred to me that I might start practicing what we preach in the world of recruiting," Strout writes. He also hopes this method will give him better insight into candidates than a résumé would. It obviously weeds out applicants who think Twitter is the sound that birds make in the spring. Strout knows this:
For people that aren't on social networks and don't blog, my new approach probably may not work. But the people we're looking for really need to be doing both.
Tags: careers | hiring | social networking
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Reader Comments
While your waiting for a J O B be humble and mow the lawn
If you believe you are too qualified to work manual labor then you have too much ego and not enough desire to work.
Dont be afraid to earn a minimal income and the base to build equity live on less than you earn and invest the profit in YOU and your skills get a name for yourself and grow.
as low as stock prices are now and even with small income you can do dollar cost averageing investing (keep good books) and as the maket recovers you will too.
if you do this you have better chances of surviing and building your personal wealth under a less burdensome tax structure. and should your Garage Band become the new Beatles or someone discover your Artistic tallent and offer you a million for that Painting you made in your "starving artist days" or you Program finaly get past all its glitches and become the next Operating system of 99% computers of the world you didnt starve and waste time spinning your wheels trying to find some one that trusts YOU enough to Let you do it for thier company so they keep your incresse (license fees for your "baby" brain work)
Untill you Get your J O B use 2/3 effort to get a job and 1/3 making lunch money er Expences so you dont get desperate and do Nothing.
You just always assume...
These people are idiots to hire this way. They just assume that everybody has a computer in their home and cell phone in their pocket. I don't have either. I can't afford either nor do I really want either. So that immediately makes me worthless in the eyes of employers. Thanks folks, for ignoring a good chunk of your potential employee pool - just because you've gone and wanted to read blogs instead of applications.
SAS Analyst/Programmer
I have over 10 years of experience in using SAS/STAT software to analyze data and interpret the results.
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