The world keeps revolving faster and faster. Not only may the language of the next generation seem like Martian to their parents, and vice versa. Just taking a five-year nap would probably make the language equally alien when you wake up. Youtubing, pinging, RSS:ing, and tagging are just some of the stuff we do and take for (absolutely) granted today that we weren’t familiar with five years ago. Not to mention blogging - you probably think I’m kidding, but google “blogging and 2003″ and see that it was virtually non-existent.
And while new behaviors and words pop up at warp speed, old ones sink into oblivion. My guess is, five years from now people will have to look up a dictionary (or google it - or use some other resource we don’t even know about today) to understand what you mean when you talk about a CV.
If you’re a product of the 1900’s like myself, you might still remember that CV is short for Curriculum Vitae, which basically is your own pimped record of what you’ve done so far in life with respect to educations and work experience.
But who needs a CV in the Expectations Society?
I spoke to one of my former students the other day. She just landed the position as editor-in-chief of a lifestyle magazine. “How come you got that job?” I asked, “it’s quite a stretch from what you’ve worked with previously”. She answered, “I bought a copy of the latest issue, and I didn’t like it. So I wrote a long letter to the editor and told them what I think the magazine should be like instead, and how I would do it. They called me and asked me to come on an interview and here I am. They weren’t interested in what I had done previously”.
In light of her brilliant plan and the magazine’s expectations on her future job, there was no need for a CV.
In the age of blogarazzi, where we all create our own next operas, anyone, anywhere (including companies and headhunting recruiters) can make up their own minds of your future. And that’s what they want to buy, your future and not your past.
Just like we’ve seen previously in a number of posts on this blog that people can be fired because of their blogs, more and more people get hired because of their blogs as well. Headhunters scan blogs as a natural part of their searches, companies make cold-calls to bloggers they like. I asked my students why they blog (virtually everyone does, everyday), they gave a number of answers. None of them omitted “future career”. I asked how many of them worked on their CV’s everyday. This year no one said yeas. Five years from now, they’ll probably ask “what is a CV?”
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Very interesting, very true, very useful.
Anyone that amounts to anything today and tomorrow is actively shaping the future, not revising the past.
More than ever, we each can shape our reality today, and as a media, information, and content society, we are becoming more and more virtual and symbolic.
The expired generation might say we are compulsive liers with a short attention span, who more often get defined by their refusal to stick to a single paradigm than anything else.
As a 90’s child, I say let the dead bury their dead.
I haven’t had a resume ever, but a regular blog in the last 8 years.
Seem to be doing ok.
Very true! But we might use the term CV in the future as well, but in a different sense. Curriculum Vitae means something like ”course of (one’s) life”, but who says you shouldn’t describe what that course will look like rather than what is behind you? ”Future CVs” is what we’ll probably refer to when we say CV in the future (kind of like the point I made about futurographies last week). Imagine the impact if you send your (F)CV to an employer stating in bullet points what you will achieve and what your unique features and skills are going to be etc.
It would be interesting if someone who’s reading this blog and looking for a job would try this and then let everyone know how it went. Very interesting to read about your resumé-free life, Alex. What about your friends of the 90’s – is it the same with them?
I believe there are two sides to this story. Are we not all working in the same business, media?
I do not think the CV will disappear, allthough its meaning gradually dissaperas when you grow older. Did you not write a resumé for your first job? Second? When you stay in a business you gradually build up a reputation. Whether, you do it by being a social person at parties, through your work, or a blogg, it is all made over time. Therefore, for your first sale pitch you will probably need a document, a CV. Hopefully, never again as your scope of work, the past, is your CV. But, the form of the CV will probably change.
A forgot one point..
How does it it look in other business area? If you are a clerk in a bank, and change workplace. Do you need a CV? I mean, in less social business, does it work the same as in our media world?
Alex,
Great thoughts! I agree. And I have to say I love the term “the expired generation”, that’s a real keeper!
Lars,
Why didn’t I think of (F)CV? As you know, I really loved your post on futurographies, should have connected the dots myself. And of course, the case of Obama from your post fits even better in terms of a (F)CV!
Miche,
You tease my imagination with your reasoning. How will the form of the CV change, got any ideas? And the last question is a really mind-wrestling one - is there/will there be non-social business anymore? What do you think?
emvehå,
MD
I think one solution is shown by the youtube clip you posted. As creativity is becoming a term more and more used in society, not only by artists and ad people i.e. creative business solutions, creative accountability (…) and for example creative thinking in the area of financing (I do not mean that other areas are not creative, only that they have not been considered as “creative”), we might see another form of job applications. Lars (F)CV is an brilliant example. But, I think the web will somehow remodel the way we look at a CV, or twist it, the way we sell ourselves. There are millions of different persons with different backgrounds; therefore there are millions of different ways of presenting oneself. If only everyone allowed them selves to be a little more creative.. and employers to celebrate that kind of courage.
Have you seen the idea Garbergs had in the Resumé competition? Imagine now all application where on the web:
- Please, for more information about me, visit xxx@asocialnetwork.com
Yeah, that is a mind twister. I think the degree of diversity is pretty small in businesses that are less social, hence, little desire to evolve, and change. But the real issue is to try to explain what is a non-social business. I do not think there really exist non-social businesses; it is more of a relative term. Some are more, some are less. The role of recommendation and the way you present yourself will always play an important role., non-social business or not. But, the degree of importance of those two factors varies between businesses. It is a more cultural question. I’ll get back to you when I have sorted out my thoughts.
Miche,
I really enjoy your thinking on breaking the CV mold, allowing for millions of different ways of presenting oneself. Seems logical that Generation In-Charge would not want to leave it up to someone else in what form they present themselves!
emvehå,
MD
I agree. It is actually kind of insulting. It is kind of a typical power struggle between generations. A way of ensuring the balance of who is in power. Not allowing new ways of presenting oneself, staying rigid and conservative, actually makes a statement: you have to adopt to me. I’m glad we are many that feel different and do not accept this. But I’m still worried about the more conservative driven businesses.