How Resumes Evolved During The Great Resignation

Of the many drastic changes the pandemic brought about since 2020, one of the biggest unprecedented phenomena seen in the global workforce is 'The Great Resignation.' Also called the 'Great Reshuffle' in the Indian context, the trend points towards millions of professionals quitting their existing jobs to seek better job opportunities, both within their own industries and completely different ones.

Changing work styles including remote work, increased pressure on employees, fewer boundaries around work hours, and overall uncertainty in healthcare led several individuals to rethink their careers and prioritise well-being over professional goals. As per a report published by the World Economic Forum in June 2021, 40 per cent of employees were looking to quit their jobs, within a year of the pandemic. An undercurrent of Gen Z and Millennial looking to change employers is already underway.

The definition of a 'good job' has arguably changed forever in the eyes of the workforce, today. A well-paying job is no longer worth it, if it brings about burnout and poor work-life balance.

Several professionals are now looking to pursue their passion alongside their day jobs. They are also actively quitting their full-time jobs to pursue entrepreneurial dreams through innovative start-up ideas. Government initiatives like Startup India Action Plan at the national level or full-fledged initiatives like T-Hub by the Telangana State Government help young professionals bring their ideas to fruition with end-to-end guidance.

However, The Great Resignation cannot be viewed in entirety as the young Indian workforce looking to quit their jobs, and never return. The idea remains that individuals are looking to pursue more meaningful and fulfilling opportunities.

Meanwhile, companies are actively looking to hire more candidates, as the gap for a skilled workforce continues to widen every year. Recruiters willing to fill positions in their organisations are often met with a barrage of candidates who are unskilled or underqualified, out of touch with the industry’s demands.

Resumes are Still Number One Priority For Recruiters

In this turbulent scenario, a resume remains one of the basic, and initial points of contact for recruiters and job seekers. Recruiters still identify a simple resume as the number one tool to filter prospective candidates, second to in-person interviews. This is prevalent especially in traditional fields like tech, finance, banking and academia. Companies looking to work with contractors and freelancers too, filter them on the basis of their resume, followed by a relevant work folio.

Candidates are required to showcase their skills in a much more powerful way, since the resume needs to highlight their new found career aspirations. Recruiters need to be convinced of a prospective candidate's competence in a succinct yet effective manner.

Mobile Apps Help Make Key Changes in Resume within Seconds

Individuals looking to explore other job opportunities within their industries now highlight different aspects of their skill set on their resumes while applying for different jobs. Similarly, freelancers looking to land opportunities with big-budget clients highlight relevant experience in said industry, or mention the relevant expertise first, so it catches the attention of the recruiter within the first few seconds of perusing through their resume.

The same candidates change key details on their resumes often to demonstrate that they're the right fit for the job. This can be especially cumbersome to do with traditional resumes. With easy on-the-go resume tools, candidates are able to make changes to their resume effortlessly through the websites or mobile applications within a few seconds.

Easily Shareable Dynamic Resumes on The Rise

Recruitment data provider Appcast found that 92 percent of job seekers never complete their job applications. Several steps in the application process, requiring to re-enter the same information, and most importantly, having to create separate accounts and passwords for every portal are some of the top reasons why most job applications remain abandoned, despite jobs being lucrative.

Resumes today are made shareable through a unique URL that captures all updates made in real-time, saving a candidate the inconvenient and boring process of filling out applications on several job portals. Through the unique URLs that capture all facets of a candidate, candidates could apply to several jobs with different skill sets easily, without having to let go of suitable opportunities.

AI Tools Aid in Creating Industry-Relevant Competent Resumes

Since recruiters go through scores of resumes on a daily basis and make important hiring decisions on the basis of concise yet powerful descriptions, every word on a resume holds utmost importance. Resume experts are often hired to go through a candidate's profile and review them, for a hefty fee.

New age AI-powered tools today aim to democratise this and make it simpler for candidates to create top-notch quality resumes. Impressive and intuitive AI tools provide tips and suggestions to the candidate. Through in-depth analysis, candidates can determine for themselves if they're using active or passive voice, strength and quality of the verbs used, whether their content would look better in bulleted lists, the number of repeated nouns and pronouns and the overall effectiveness of the language used.

Industry and Organisation-Specific Suggestions Help Make Competitive Resumes

Candidates are often disappointed when they don't hear back from recruiters after sending in their applications. While a small percentage of recruiters do write back stating why they have been rejected, most often, candidates are kept in the dark about the reasons that led to their rejection. This leaves no scope for improvement, and candidates are often left to make the same mistakes over and over again, albeit with different recruiters.

Providing timely rejection correspondence helps people better their career prospects and re-apply to organisations again with renewed skills and enthusiasm.

With intuitive comparison features come to the aid of millions of professionals, even before they apply. Professionals are able to compare any resume to theirs and receive a bias-free objective analysis of where their skills are lacking, and what they could possibly improve to get to their desired job role. What's also interesting is the tool isn't generic - it is designed to cater to the professional's specific industry and even the organisation they're applying to.

Video Resumes Form Better Emotional Connections

With fewer in-person interactions taking place every day, resumes are also evolving to demonstrate an individual's credibility and reliability to recruiters, especially from different cultures and backgrounds. Video resumes, in this context, become an effective tool to connect on an emotional level with the recruiter as compared to a cover letter.

As the world inches towards remote working, full-time professionals, entrepreneurs and freelancers are exposed to a host of opportunities from around the globe. Indian professionals can be appealing to potential employers and clients by showcasing skills on their resume in an effective, future-forward, and innovative manner.

(About the author: Mr Manikanth Challa is the CEO and Founder of Workruit, an AI-driven Career and Recruitment platform. Before Workruit, he worked with several start-ups like Dil Mil, Interplay Ventures, Trusto, LotusFlare, RevSquare, Founder Shield, Nomad Financial, and primarily with the Founders of the ventures with a closed-quarter experience and birds-eye view on the vision and objective.

Manikanth Challa pursued his under graduation in Information Science Technology in the United States from the prestigious Pennsylvania State University. Along with having IT as his major, he chose a minor in theatre, which provided him with the scope to be more practical and realistic on dealing with his professional and personal life.)