Posted by: Kevin Casey

I have despised resumes since 1991, when I did up a batch of seventy-five
and sent them to any place with a postal code in the City that sounded like
they might be hiring a fresh business grad.

It was a necessary evil in the land of finding a job… about as stimulating
as those bibliographies I had to do back at Business School.

Painful.

Resumes are the root canals of the job search – without the Novocain. They
generally all look the same, are hugely uninteresting, and require heavy
mental lifting on the part of the reader before driving them into a deep REM
sleep.

Somewhere along the way we were all told to conform and hunt for the same
jobs in the same way… pointless.

Our last hire in the creative department – say Hi to Jed – sent this video
along with his creative writing test and it caught the attention of the team
and got him to the front of the line.

One of our past work-term students, Cody, took a different approach and
decided on a random Saturday afternoon to use the power of his video camera
and his new Mac to create this übercool version of a “video resume” to break
through the sameness:

Use all the fancy fonts and expensive paper for your resume you like, but it
still won’t come close to the brave self-presentation by Cody. Only one will
make it to the top of the heap.

So… If you are talented and think you can really make a difference to the
world then stop the stream of everyday resumes and do something different.
Being boring never sells anything. Including yourself.

And resumes are boring.

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7 Responses to “We Reject Resumes.”

1. Tweets that mention A necessary evil in the land of finding a job - We Reject Resumes - Read more: -- Topsy.com says:

   May 3, 2010 at 1:43 pm

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by The Idea Factory, The Idea Factory. The Idea Factory said: A necessary evil in the land of finding a job – We Reject Resumes – Read more: http://bit.ly/8XWxEs [...]
2. Ron Power says:

   May 7, 2010 at 7:03 am

   The videos posted don’t work. It is nice to be creative, but it’s better to have quality as well.
3. Kevin Casey says:

   May 7, 2010 at 6:37 pm

   Hey Ron,

   But it did work -Jed actually broke thru the sameness and landed a full time gig with The IDEA Factory as we found the whole effort unexpected and Cody has a job with a small company called Live Nation that just happens to be the biggest promoter of concerts on the planet…….2 for 2.

   KC
4. Jedediah says:

   May 10, 2010 at 7:00 am

   Ron, can you explain what you mean by don’t work?
5. Tom Hickey says:

   May 14, 2010 at 2:27 pm

   I just had ad ad for Sales Person a one of the popular websites that do this, and I can say right now that there is no way, I will be looking at all those resumes. What’s worse is you list the minimum qualifications and people obviously NOT qualified apply and waste your time anyway.

   If you are an admin person, don’t apply for a sales job and expect to get an interview. If you happen to be in the wrong career, let me know WHY what’s on your resume doesn’t matter and I should talk to you. – Which begs the question, why not pick up the phone and call – instead of a faceless email?

   Good post Kev, one of my pet peeves.
6. Gord Caines says:

   May 27, 2010 at 8:34 pm

   Loved this entry! I always feel something’s lacking when submitting a resume – that piece of paper just isn’t me! I’ve never had the courage to do something off the beaten path though like these new hires.

   Congrats guys!
7. Grace says:

   June 21, 2011 at 11:43 am

   Loved the first video by Jed! Very creative. Cool.
   Grace