Business psychologist asks “Is the CV Dead?” and claims organisations need to completely rethink their recruitment strategies in the light of advances in technology.
Business psychologist and director of Future Resume, David Royston-Lee, says CVs are “one dimensional” and used in isolation cannot ensure employers identify the best candidates for a role.
Royston-Lee, said: “Many acknowledge that the CV is no longer fit for purpose, yet it is still at the heart of the way in which we recruit.
With increasing complexity in the world of work, the speed of change and the resulting skills shortages, we should be looking beyond the boundaries of the CV of what someone has done in the past. Employers need to know the potential someone has now and for the future”.
“The ‘gaming’ of CVs by candidates to include job description key words compounds the problem and means that their CV often bears little resemblance to the actual person it represents.”
Deloitte in its 2024 Global Human Capital Trends survey says ‘it is time to trade in the rules of the past and prioritise human performance in a boundaryless future’.
They also state that with the emergence of Generative AI and other advances in technology it is exposing a huge deficit in imagination in human capabilities.
There are amazing opportunities opening up to organisations but only if they put a renewed premium on the human capabilities that cannot be replicated by machines.
This completely different way of thinking, says Royston-Lee, will move very fast to remove the old way of recruiting based on measurable abilities to one where the unmeasurable human qualities are the basis of recruiting in the future.
Gone are the days of looking for functional and technical skills to work in predictable environments, rather the organisation of the future is looking for the ability to be agile, adaptable, curious and imagine completely different futures.
Organisations will have to ensure they are concentrating on the things AI cannot replicate, those human qualities that even recently were greeted with scepticism and a wry grin!
“In my own experience working with chief executives, they are nervous that the way they are recruiting is already outmoded” he said. “They talk about how the way they look for candidates will be changing dramatically with the advances AI will bring”
”The CV was devised at a time when people did not change jobs. Jobs were for life and the CV was based on predictability and a belief that looking at a person’s past was the best way to predict their future.”
Along with former recruitment software MD Tim Richards, the pair launched Future Resume in 2018. It provides a revolutionary recruitment tool, devised by Royston-Lee, that allows companies to ‘discover’ the real person behind a CV.
Designed to help shortlist applicants for interview, their Future Resume document acts as a matching tool to provide improved insight about the candidate, looking beyond what a CV offers.
A more informed decision, based on a much more indepth look at the authentic person behind their CV, can be made. The approach also enables the hiring manager to ask different questions of the candidate that allow a deeper understanding of what makes the candidate tick.
He said: “With research showing that organisation changes will demand much more flexibility and adaptability of individuals in the future, the way in which we approach the recruitment process should reflect this.
The emphasis should be on a person’s potential to develop with the company as it grows. Currently, a CV simply shows us a snapshot of what someone has done in the past and not what a person can do in the future.”
He is also concerned about increased investment in ‘workforce sciences’, based on the idea that the data individuals create while doing things online can be ’harvested’ and interpreted to provide a better idea of a person’s suitability. He added that the need for greater transparency within organisations and the need that trust is established with candidates means this type of activity will only be detrimental to the organisation’s appeal to candidates.
He added: “I would argue that we need to be a lot more ‘candidate centric’. People know what they are capable of, and more importantly, what it is they want to be doing in the future. Too often the areas that cannot be ‘measured’ are given little credence in the recruitment process.
“If one takes a step back from the CV, it is merely a historical record of what someone has achieved in work and does not identify what they are potentially capable of in the future. Identifying what an individual’s talents are and how they use them, in my mind, is a much better way of really understanding a person and what they can achieve. Coupled with their aspirations and their values, we can start to see exactly where a person is heading on their journey to find work that satisfies them using all their capabilities to the full.”
Richards and Royston-Lee say the use of Future Resume will also help to address recruitment struggles faced by those who do not fit the ‘normal’ candidate profile especially young people with little or no past work experience, those returning to work and also those who have decided to change their career.