Hiring without resumes - Could this be a new trend?

WSJ Business & Finance Tuesday, June 27, 2017 Radical Hiring Experiment: Resumes Are Out - No resume? No campus recruiting. No human touch until the end of the process. Now that’s a new concept. No more agonizing over every word, accomplishment, spell check, whether to have an Overview or not, what to include, tailoring it to the specific job, how to format it, how to be creative. Well, a radical concept is being tested by Unilever PLC. While no resume is required, Unilever PLC is testing an exhaustive, in-depth new screening process for hiring entry level jobs and internships where software and algorithms do the bulk of the work to narrow the candidate pool for the final interview. A human writes the job description and a targeted ad is placed on Facebook and career-advice sites (like WayUp and the Muse) Interested candidates are directed to a career site to apply. Then the fun begins. The candidate goes through a series of online games and if they pass that hurdle, they go on to the next step – submitting a video answering pre-selected questions. The software uses a variety of data points including how fast the person responds to the question, body language and vocabulary to weed people out. For the candidate, it has to be strange because there isn’t the human feedback or body language of an interviewer to see if something needs clarification. The candidate pool becomes narrowed down to those who actually finally meet face to face with managers and human resources. Since the fall of 2016, Unilever has hired over 450 people globally. It will be interesting to follow how the process works over time vs the conventional method. Will it produce employees who are more successful and a better fit with the company? And, will it be extended to higher level positions? Stay tuned.