A couple of years ago I advised a SpeakingEnergy client to pursue a “No resume policy.” The strategy was simple: when advertising open positions state: “We’re only accepting stories, not resumes. Schedule an appointment…come in and tell us a story about yourself.” The results far exceeded their expectations.
Since that first experiment I have advised several other companies to do the same.
Interviews can be laborious, often uninspiring events (for both sides) and the resume inadvertently contributes to this. Without a resume the conversation is free to flow. It is still “an interview” – but it’s now one without a “barricade.” For one HR director, the no resume experiment was summed up like this: “We wanted to hire all 15 who came in. A great cross section of candidates.”
Person to person, live human speaking. Based on a simply worded ad a tone was set, and this brought out the most motivated candidates who were genuinely interested in working at that firm. Not just “job seekers” going through the motions to try and get work. The “no resume applicants” were keen to share their story with a firm who valued stories and they brought that energy to the interview: imagination and creative thinking; insights and perspectives, curiosity and enthusiasm; jump in and face the challenge, be a self-starter…on and on. In other words, the core of any company’s most basic philosophies. After this first “story conversation” the candidate was asked to submit some traditional resume-like information, but now that data was different: it supported the story, gave more meaning to the first conversation; depth was added to a piece of paper that can unfortunately lack a lot of depth (especially when you receive thousands of pieces of paper).
Every employee is an important communications resource. Set that tone in the candidate search; resume free and story strong. Both sides will find what they’re looking for.