If you work in technology and have any kind of a public presence (Twitter, Personal Blog or just a profile on LinkedIn) you will eventually and probably regularly get an e-mail that goes something like this:

I came across your resume and I think you are the perfect match for «some position» at my client. We have been searching for someone with experience in «some technology» and you seem to be a great fit. I would like to schedule some time with you……

I chuckle every time I get one of these because in my case I can tell you that it is a bold faced lie. My resume is not public in any way, shape or form and it is horribly out of date. And by “horribly out of date” I mean like 10 years out of date: It lists me being a certified systems engineer on Windows NT 4 and it is in Times New Roman. I have taken to responding to these e-mail inquiries by telling the person just that:

Hey thanks for reaching out to me. I am sure that your client is an awesome place to work. You might want to take a more careful look at my resume, because you will find that I am not qualified in any way shape or form to use the technology that your customer is seeking.

My response is a little snarky and I should be nicer. I have only gotten a couple of responses from this: One asking me for my resume and one admitting that they pulled the information from LinkedIn. Evidentially if you pay for the LinkedIn premium membership, you get a lot more tools to search for people. Unlike some people, I am totally cool with the LinkedIn model. They provide me a free service and as a result they collect revenue from the few people who want extra utility from the service. As long as I can have a gateway between myself and the recruiter I am fine with that model. The gateway being they have to contact me via LinkedIn.

I keep my information on LinkedIn reasonably current, much more so than that 10+ year old resume. So what I have been wondering is if it is possible to do away with the resume all together? I am not in the job market, but if I was would a recruiter or human resources department accept a hyperlink to a LinkedIn profile rather than a Word Document or PDF that contains the same information? I would think that since LinkedIn has a consistent data structure, they would actually prefer that.

In the meantime, I hope I don’t have to update my resume any time soon….