Resumes have been at the forefront of the hiring process for as long as we can remember. This humble unassuming document precedes a candidate’s interview round and is often the first line of filtering that potential candidates have to go through. It provides a concise yet comprehensive history of an individual’s skills and experience that the hiring manager can go through quickly. However, they are not perfect.
Where are we stuck?
There are a number of shortcomings with resumes — for starters, it is not necessary that everything on a candidate’s resume is true. Resume fudging and lying is extremely common and companies have to spend a lot of time and money on verification of these resumes. This causes unnecessary overhead for the company, and delays the hiring process.
More significantly, it creates an air of distrust that is very hard to shake off — in the back of the minds of the recruiters is the thought that they need to be careful and cautious about assessing candidates based on their resume.
Another issue with resumes is that although they might be in digital formats, it is not esay to automate resume parsing to extract information. Even though progress has been made on this front, and at Springworks we are actively working on this, it is not a completely a foolproof process. It leaves a lot to be desired in the way of extracting useful information and often there has to be some manual intervention which prevents it from being seamlessly integrated in an automated process.
With the ubiquity of social media, it is clear that a richer source of information about the candidate was being overlooked. Resumes are now being evaluated in conjunction with the candidate’s online profiles, and according to a survey, 93% of hiring managers vet a candidate’s social media and online professional profiles before making a hiring decision. Having a solid online profile, free from blemishes, is just as important as having a strong resume.
What is the problem?
A lot of the issues troubling resumes find themselves applicable in the online profile as well. It is not difficult to carefully craft an online profile in exactly the way one wants themselves to be portrayed.
LinkedIn is currently the most popular professional networking platform on the Internet, and according to the same survey mentioned before, 79% of recruiters have hired candidates through it. However, it is important to note that even though recruiters are active on LinkedIn it does not solve the primary issue of job seekers’ data verification. For one, anyone can post anything they like on their profile, and even endorsements don’t do much to help validate their skills as endorsements can also be faked.
Secondly, LinkedIn has a uniqueness problem — it is very difficult to differentiate the quality of two different profiles on LinkedIn. Someone with five years of experience and someone else who is just starting off in their career could have very identical profiles. Once skill endorsements hit the above 100 mark, two different profiles can look very similar at a quick glance.
How can we move forward?
Just like the Internet had a profound impact on how we could discover and consume information, blockchain will have a similar, profound impact on the trust and accuracy that we assign to that information. This impact also has implications in the hiring and recruitment space.
One of the fundamental facets of the blockchain is that it is tamper-proof and secure. No one can change or alter anything added to the blockchain — not even the user who posted it. This will prove itself to be very valuable to employers and hiring managers, as they will no longer have to spend any money or time on verification.
The advantages of the blockchain lends itself very well to the concept of a verified professional profile. If a person’s professional profile is on the blockchain, and all of his skills and experiences are attested to be true, they will remain so. You will never have to re-verify that information.
Moreover, it also promotes an environment of trust and genuineness which, while seeming like a small difference, lends a major change in the power and usefulness of professional networks. Hiring managers and recruiters can now make decisions based on the profiles of the candidates that they read online — they don’t have to worry about the information that is written being falsified. Equally important is the fact that with the advent of weighted endorsements (as Springworks plans to do) uniqueness of a profile will be distinctive and lets candidates showcase their skills in manner that helps them get discovered and get jobs that are relevant to them.
In the world of blockchain, we are seeing a lot of our long held assumptions quickly disappearing from our world view. The once ‘all important resume might find itself obsolete in a world where rich, authentic digital profiles are the go-to touchpoint in the hiring process. We are thrilled about the fact that Springworks will be one of the first companies leading the way in the applications of this game changing technology.
Read all our articles related to Blockchain Technology
