Every business has its own unique culture, and the traditional resume fails to denote the personality and individualism of the applicant; this leads to wasted time interviewing the wrong applicants and missed opportunities to employ culturally beneficial employees. A culturally beneficial employee is one that fits the company culture and improves the performance of the entire team with both their skills and personality. The most advanced technologies available, are still using the traditional resume as a baseline for the sourcing, sorting, and evaluation of a potential hire.
Even with the implementation of artificial intelligence to sort through the predetermined metadata the personality of the applicant is rarely if ever accurately portrayed. The majority of the current technological effort to improve the process is focused on the efficiency of sorting through the data provided by the applicant. Not only does this reduce the individual to a bulleted list in a virtual ocean of similar candidates, but it can also be manipulated with the understanding of how the algorithms function. While the use of artificial intelligence has some merit in the filtering process in the form of predetermined qualifications, it has no consideration for the personality of the candidate. Through the utilization of case studies and visual analysis, the determination is made that the current hiring process while seeking efficiency and efficacy is only addressing a portion of the problem. Most employers understand that modern methods are lacking in their ability to present a potential hire holistically. They also understand the importance of hiring an employee that fits the company culture. This results in the employers conducting an additional step between the sourcing and evaluation stage where they conduct their own research of the candidates utilizing basic social media searches.
The research shows that the majority of job seekers are consciously or unconsciously creating a personal brand for themselves through their social media activity. With this information, available employers are using the tools available to fill in the gaps where the traditional resume is lacking. This paper demonstrates that there exists a need to augment the traditional resume to present the applicant in a more holistic nature to aid the employer in making the best decision for both the hiring company and the applicant as well.