Unfortunately, the world is revolving and your online presence does become a part of your resume... - Mona Nomura

ding ding ding - andy brudtkuhl

Mona - I'd say replacing, not revolving. Why do you need my resume? Check linkedin, my blog, facebook, etc... what else do you want to know? - Brian Roy

The problem with Scoble's idea is that not everyone is a good writer and not every good candidate cares about personal brand and self-promotion through blogs. A great software engineer might not blog about technology and instead might write about food or model trains or anything other than what he does at his job. How would this blog-centric vetting work for him? - Akiva Moskovitz

I guess one way to resolve this is by using a site that develops a resume for you and provides you a link to give to potential employers. JobFox is pretty good. - Shevonne

Shevonne - Forget about a resume... what is the hangup with that ANCIENT way of doing things. They need to know stuff about you (more than experience, education and certifications)... where is that stuff? For me it is LinkedIn, my Blog, Facebook, etc... what is the point of the old form piece of paper? - Brian Roy

I say it completely depends on the job you want. There are a lot of jobs where they want a real, regular resume and don't care at all about your online presence, and jobs where your online presence may actually hurt your chances. - Nine

Another thing I don't like about this idea is that you're essentially 'on the clock' 24/7 if everything you do online reflects you as a potential employee. The Internet is escapism for me and I do some extremely goofy things on it for amusement. Sure, some sites, such as LinkedIn, are job-oriented but FriendFeed? Hell, no. I come here to enjoy myself, not to impress employers looking for programmers. In fact, I rarely talk about my field here. - Akiva Moskovitz

And here is the secret: companies don't hire you for what is on your resume... they are looking for "fit". You need to fit in. If the company values consensus and you are a rebel - you don't fit. If the company values "just get it done" and you want to make everyone happy before getting it done... you don't fit. - Brian Roy

I'm pretty sure I got my job because of my resume and the interview, not beceause of who I am online. - Nine

I agree with Ninth's first comment. That's true for the majority of non-geek oriented jobs, although I have to assume that Scoble is talking about all employees in geek fields, not all employees for all types of jobs. - Rochelle

You got the interview based on your resume... you got the job because of the interview... what do you think they were evaluating in the interview? - Brian Roy

Well they weren't evaluating my online presence, I know that much. - Nine

Brian, we all know how the interview process works. You haven't uncovered some secret here. - Akiva Moskovitz

Your online presence is an extension of you. A reflection of who you are, how you operate, how you think, solve problems, interact with others, etc. That is what they were evaluating in the interview... no? - Brian Roy

Akiva - I'm not suggesting I have... I'm suggesting that your online presence is a better representation of you and what you bring to the table than a resume (or potentially even a resume + interview). Sorry for the leading question... - Brian Roy

Brian, no. They weren't. They were interviewing ME. They saw nothing of my online presence. Even if they ran searches (and I'm sure they did), work-me is not online-me. - Nine

Brian, sure, but, as I wrote above, not everyone's online presence is built to groom them for an interview. A lot of people use the Internet as a diversion, not to build up popularity. If they were to look at my online presence, they'd be hard pressed to even figure out that I wrote code for a living or that I've been doing it for nearly ten years. My Internet presence (if I even have one) is not an extension of me as a potential employee. - Akiva Moskovitz

Just want to point out for many management and executive level jobs, having a personal blog might be held against you. Non-disclosure and corporate discretion covers most of what you do, and blathering about your work online would be bad form indeed. - Nadine Schaeffer

Akiva - I just flipped you your feed on FF and it is abundantly clear to me that you both write code and have been doing it for quite some time. I can also discern that you not only write code but get some juice from helping others write better code... and you are not pushy about it... you offer encouraging advice... Now I may not be 100% right... because I only looked at the first page for like 45 seconds... - Brian Roy

That's only because I just so happened to be talking about C# yesterday. I often go days and weeks without mentioning coding at all. You're right about your assessment, though. But, yesterday was a bit of a fluke. - Akiva Moskovitz

Akiva - but I can search for you + C# + Java + dot net - And the context... how you drop it in casually and aren't obsessed with JUST THAT tells me you are multi-dimensional, not obsessed with coding (in other words you are capable of a healthy balance), etc. - If you are looking to hire aren't all of these things exactly what you want to know? I know I do... - Brian Roy

the problem with resumes is many employers/hr managers are so narrow minded that they ignore them all together and are much more interested in you filling out a bunch of blanks on a piece of paper and judging you from that. - Jason Shultz from twhirl

Akiva - check this out :) http://friendfeed.com/search... - Brian Roy

Jason - I can tell you from experience... they (we) skim them and look for "check boxes" to divide them up into "interview" and "no interview" piles. That is pretty much it. Oh yeah and if I can't find everything I need checked off in about 4 minutes... it is going in the "no interview" pile. - Brian Roy

Brian, cut that out! I guess what I'm really trying to say is that if you extend the hiring process to stuff like my FriendFeed, it puts pressure on me to be on my best behavior at all times. I'm fine with dovetailing my personality with my job but not when I'm goofing off on the Internet. I would hate to think that I always have to censor myself here on FriendFeed because some employer might judge me poorly over what I do here in my spare time. - Akiva Moskovitz

Akiva, that's my feeling exactly. It's why I don't use my real name for places like this or LiveJournal... or even my blog. - Nine

Don't you want to hire people who have the capacity to "goof off" - Especially developers... I mean if I have to work with you for 18 hours straight to meet a code complete deadline and you are anti-social and BORING I might have to find a bridge to jump off of. Again... goes back to "fit". - Brian Roy

I agree with Akiva that spare time and work time should remain separate. Unless my spare-time actions are likely to bring my employer/business/clients into disrepute, then it should be off-limits. No-one, but no-one is 100% on best behaviour all the time in any case. That would make life very boring indeed. - Ian May

I think in limited areas, that may be true, but let's put it into perspective. There are 150+ million US workers; FF has way less than 1% of that number and Facebook is less than 10%. How is a blog/online presense a reasonable factor for hiring outside of tech or like fields? It's not. A resume should, and can, act as a simple descriptor of your skill set; an employer can and should then use that as a way to sort applicable candidates for interview, which is where you can better determine 'fit.' internet presense may someday be essential for may jobs, but we're not even close to that yet. - Bob M. Montgomery from twhirl

Further to that. I am me. If 'me' doesn't fit with what someone is looking for to fill a position, or if I am expected to radically change to 'fit' in with that position, then, it's the wrong position for me. - Ian May

In my opinion, this is the equivalent of the lawyer always being asked for legal advice at a cocktail party or family reunion, or the IT guy being asked over to dinner to fix someone's computer before dessert. Everyone deserves a little downtime, even on the internet. - Trish R

Brian, just to be clear, I keep interviews on even footing once I'm on the phone or, especially, once I'm in the room. I don't pretend to be someone else in an interview and I let my personality show. I show up dressed as how I expect to dress each day for work. At the same time, I am evaluating them. I've ended interviews early when I realized that they weren't a match for me. - Akiva Moskovitz

So Ian - you are not going to socialize with the people you work with? You won't discuss what you do in your "spare-time" around the office? You made my "fit" point for me... you don't want to work somewhere that forces you to subvert your personality... and they don't want you to work there... - Brian Roy

Bob - Agree, we are not there yet... but we are headed there. And I can't think of a single problem with it. - Brian Roy

And your blog isn't your online presence? It definitely is part of it. It's not the whole picture, but most people will look at your blog and then do a background check on you to assess your online presence. - Tamar Weinberg

Nadine - just saw your comment. Yes, it will be held against you from time to time (the simple fact that you have a blog). And you will have to observe the companies blogging/social media policy. But if they don't want you BECAUSE you have a blog... do you want to work there? What does that say about the culture and their approach - transparency, etc? - Brian Roy

Tamar - agree. In fact my about page is just links to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed. - Brian Roy

Brian: I am just pointing out that for different jobs, different rules apply. Also, by way of example, designers are still judged more by their portfolios than aught else. A blog is just not a one size fits all solution for job applications. - Nadine Schaeffer

Perhaps one's online presence can work alongside a résumé in helping an employer get a better handle on you as a person but I don't think that it should completely supplant a résumé. - Akiva Moskovitz

Could not agree more, a resume is over simplified and static for todays world. Problem is getting "old guard" to throw it out and look for the new solution - Tony Jones from twhirl

So... if they are going to review your LinkedIn, Blog, FF, Twitter (etc) - what exactly is the point of the resume... doesn't it become a fancy way to say "I'd like to be considered"? @Peter - I can sort just as (or more) quickly based on LinkedIn - Brian Roy

I wonder if it might be a violation of hiring practices to review a person's blog? Sure the person is making the information public, but aren't companies restricted from trying to ascertain some of that personal info? If I mention to you in an interview that I read your blog and your blog mentions that you have a disability, and I don't hire you, could you sue my company over unfair hiring practices? - Kevin Goldsmith from twhirl

Kevin, a disability is different. There are laws that protect that. If you blog about loving cats and your potential employer hates cats so they don't hire you, I don't think you'd have a chance in terms of a lawsuit. There's no law protecting people who like cats. - Rochelle

In some cases you are not allowed to blog about your work experiences, or strongly discouraged from doing so. There maybe be NDAs in effect, and you could get in trouble for releasing company IP. I choose not to blog about my current projects with employers (or even mention where I work) because I don't want to have to put a disclaimer on my blog about the fact that everything is my opinion and not my company's. That makes my blog not a great reflection of my main work, but more side projects and personal interests. Of course I still list it on my resume because it does have some relation to my work and personality, but it's not a comprehensive representation and it never will be. I wouldn't want to be judged on it alone. - Lindsay is in 20-ten

Although a blog can't always show your skills. Unless you show your work there or something along those lines. But, I can see looking at someone's blog or online presence to see what kind of person they may be or what their personality is like. - Mathew™ one of a kind

Rochelle - and there should be :) - Brian Roy

Lindsay - agree. I don't (ok.. I just did recently but only after having been gone for 8 months) talk about my previous employer - just to avoid the impression of impropriety. That being said.. if you go to linked in you can see who it was so... Regarding NDA/etc - you will have to adhere to the companies blogging/Social Media policy (you'd be surprised how many have them now). - Brian Roy

So if a blog is a reflection of who you are, can it be used in a personality assessment or profile? - Trish R

Again, I think in certain environments, especially places with offices, this might be the case. However, if I'm hiring a fireman, I really don't care about your addiction to LOLCats and Scoble's twitter feed up front; what a resume affords me, as an employer, is the ability to quickly determine if you have the required training/skills to be a fireman—that's the purpose of a resume. I think this is the case for most jobs, and again, the numbers simply don't bear out Scoble's assertion. - Bob M. Montgomery

As an aside, I actually think this is a valuable discussion, and resumes will move to and evolve on the Web. I just don't think we're anywhere near that now. - Bob M. Montgomery

Kevin, if it's public you can't stop them... and it would be difficult to prove that they reviewed your blog and that was the factor in why you weren't interviewed. If it's easy to find in a Google Search it's potentially a liability for you. That's why there are all these services sprung up recently to help you "clean up your reputation" online. There's a fine line we walk between privacy and participation... it's too bad there's no way to have contexts on the web so you can control your information. - Lindsay is in 20-ten

Bob - A resume just tells me you can make a convincing case you have those skills. And if that fireman/woman is working 3 on 2 off and lives in the firehouse for 3 days you can bet your <well you know> that I want to assess his/her personality and determine if he/she will fit in. And I still agree we are not there yet... but moving in that direction rapidly. - Brian Roy

Bob, how about for fields with little/no technology component? 100% non-geek jobs? Will those resumes go completely web-based too? - Rochelle

I am sure both matter. I used resumes to get an overview of experience, then checked web presence to see if it was consistent. - Karoli

I'm down with common sense. I've been on a few hiring committees for selecting student programmers to help us out. It's probably not a good idea to mention a blog at all because I'd probably visit it. If you mention spending your free time playing WoW with fat does of Twitter, you better believe a few red flags will go off in my head. This is one reason why I don't use my full name here. One google search with me making a stupid comment (which happens often) may have some serious results. - Rodfather

Rodfather - What is wrong with a stupid comment? Are you suggesting you would NEVER make one at work? I'm sure an employer would be very interested NOT in the comment - but how you deal with it. Are you defensive? Do you evade the issue when called on it? Do you proactively apologize? Those are what matter... not the stupid comment, we all do that. - Brian Roy

Rochelle, I do think the day is coming when everyone will have a Web presense, and part of that will be a type of resume that details your employable specs: degree, skills, work history, etc. That's still a resume, even if it's not a paper one submitted with a cover letter. There will probably always be fields where it's not important, but not many. - Bob M. Montgomery

Brian, I think we're talking in circles, though. In my example, I specified 'up front' and that's the key. There has to be a basic threshold of qualifications for a position, especially something technical; a simple, practical resume fits that bill, whether it's printed out or online. It's not making a case, it should be a simple, factual list to help me determine if you can do what I need done, technically. After that, then I want to know about your LOLCats obsession :) - Bob M. Montgomery

BTW, the only reason the fireman thing comes to mind is because my cousin is the local fire chief :) - Bob M. Montgomery

The problem is that not many companies are looking at LinkedIn, or similar sites, to find employees. These sites work fine for self-employed or high tech individuals. However, like Ninth said, many other areas still use a resume and don't care much about your online presence. - Shevonne

the resume is dead, i get my jobs via friends and my good looks these days. cheers - sean percival

Oohhhh Sean, lucky you. =) - Shevonne

RE: Only tech companies use LinkedIn - check this out: http://www.linkedin.com/company... Construction has more than 25 pages of companies listed. - Brian Roy

RE: Only a small number of companies use LinkedIn - check this out: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008... - they had 160,000 at LAUNCH in March... can't find numbers for how many now. - Brian Roy

Brian, yes companies do use LinkedIn, but I think it will be a few years when they start using it to find employees. The only people who use LinkedIn for that are recruiters. - Shevonne

@Akiva Moskowitz: good point about being on the clock 24/7. - edythe