How much do CVs still matter?

When was the last time somebody asked you for your CV? I’m not talking about the notion of a CV in the broader sense, the what-I-did-when — that will always be relevant when you need to send off a profile to, say, the conference organizer who wants you as a speaker. What I mean is the document that lands up at the desk of a head-hunter or somebody in HR: the traditional way in which a person’s suitability for a position is assessed.

How much does that kind of CV still matter, really? Do you really need to rely on a piece of paper listing where you went to school and what you did between April 2001 and July 2004 in order to get a job, unless you want to include the PhD you got from that highly reputable online university based in the Caribbean?

(Because CVs are always completely and utterly truthful and reliable, right?)

It occurred to me while chatting with my BEE partner on my new site (currently in beta — we both have day jobs) that the traditional bog-standard CV simply isn’t especially relevant or useful anymore.

Now, this won’t be true for everyone, of course. But as a brand communication strategist, I find that more and more of my work relates specifically to social media and how to integrate it with other media channels. I blog, I tweet, I update my status, I write columns, I speak at seminars. My views on how I see the world are out there for anyone prepared to type my name into the Google search bar.

I can’t imagine working in a world in which this kind of connectedness is not a central feature. So when somebody sends me an email asking for a CV, I find it just plain… odd. Surely you’ve done your homework? The first thing I do when I want to know if someone is legit is a quick online search (if I don’t find much evidence of you online, I assume you’re somewhat dodgy or a dinosaur, or both). If someone is interested in working with me, then they can find me on Linked In or Facebook or Twitter (as a rule, I don’t find LinkedIn especially useful, it has to be said).

Here’s another thing about the old-style CV. It assumes that you’re just one of many, just another option in a pile. You’re competing against many others for the attention of someone who is only interested in what can be summarized in 12 point Times New Roman on an A4 page. That’s true for a great many jobs, still. Perhaps even most jobs right now. But anyone who wants to get ahead knows that that in theory we’re all our own brand — as opposed to just a commodity — and we shouldn’t have to do that.

The people we want to work with already know about us. They’ve been watching us, taking an interest in what we have to say. Our names are the names that come to mind when they’re looking for someone in a world in which many of the jobs being advertised — if they’re advertised at all — have never existed before. To be perfectly honest: if you need my CV in order to know whether you want to work with me, then I’m not sure I want to work with you.

If you matter in my world — the world I want to work with — you’re in social media. These days, the CV is the last thing you send, not the first. And in the not too distant future, my bet is that we won’t bother with them at all.