If you want to see a somewhat similar idea executed well and without any financing and that is actually growing, go check out Emurse.com.

You don’t need any resume. This is probably true.You’re brilliant. You’re well-known in the community you are working in. Headhunters are calling you. Your posts are your resume because you are known-enough not to have to apply on jobs.

However for the rest of us, modest and unknown bloggers (or even worse non-bloggers), recruiters do not search directly on our names. They search for skills or job titles or companies or… all these things that appear on a resume.

So will, VisualCV work? I don’t know. The competition is fierce out there. But one thing is sure: the old resume is still alive and kicking.

Funny thing is that another article was published on the resume at the same date on ERE. With a title like “The Devalued Currency of Hiring: The Resume”, I was expecting another article on the same theme.
url: http://www.ere.net/articles/db.....423748.asp

However Sue Danbom’s perspective (she’s the author) is more about criticizing how recruiters and managers use resumes than about how resumes are dead, obsolete, pointless, useless, ….

As she points out:

We do need a starting point. As imperfect as resumes are, they can let us know if the candidate has basic, required qualifications (assuming the candidate is truthful).

This is the point: a resume is one source of data, typically the initial one. But it would be a mistake to consider it as the sole source of information about a candidate. A resume is not a behavioural assessment, nor a background check, nor a competency test, nor an interview. This would be the same as building a house using only a hammer! Good luck!

Phillip and Clint are two serious entrepreneurs with solid backgrounds. I’ve done a lot of work with Clint, both in telecom and with another of his start-ups, the Heiden Group. If anyone can make this idea fly, they are the team.

That said, I agree that VisualCV is not really that original. I dont think that many people would want to use the video application. The idea of adding documents to a portfolio is not new either.

I’m sure that there is a huge potential for online resumes. Today, the greatest competitor in the market is the resume.doc that you can create with MS Word, which remains the best option for members of the general public who want to create a resume: it is quick and simple to use and is easy to customize.

In my opinion, the real professional networks like LinkedIn will never become popular with the general public. There is therefore a lot that can still be done to improve online resumes… particularly in extending the use to the general public.

At DoYouBuzz.com (a french startup set to launch a professional platform in 2 months time), we believe that online resumes need to break away from the format and design of traditional paper resumes. May the competition begin

I have recently been referred to Zapoint - http://www.zapoint.com which has developed an achievement based recruiting function — it looks more promising in the long run

This tool is really great for students and professionals looking for jobs.

Adriano Lopes
http://blog.belive.ws

As others have mentioned above, there are many reasons why online resumes like this won’t work in today’s real world.

I also don’t think it is a good idea to display your photo. Maybe YOU are good looking and in shape. But what of the rest of the world? People who don’t have model looks, aren’t in shape, have gray hair, etc.? Don’t forget the rampant age discrimination against older people that exists in [at least] the IT world.

I certainly agree that there are potential HR / EOE issues regarding viewing photos and videos of candidates too early in the process. VisualCV has a setting specifically for recruiters / HR-types that allows you to turn off photos and videos while viewing candidate VisualCVs. Though this may not entirely solve the issue, it does show that VisualCV is at least thinking about potential problems and working towards a solution.

One area where the multimedia aspects could really play an effective role in getting you hired is with video recommendations. As a potential employer, viewing a video recommendation is going to get my attention a lot more than a stale text list of recommendations that I’d have to call up one by one.

Anyway, doesn’t LInkedIn already have this feature? and it has a lot more features. Why would I create yet another CV on a different site. Even if visual cv wants to poach from LinkedIn, why don’t they start supporting openID? At least I won’t have to bother yet another username/password. Even Yahoo IDs are now supported in OpenID.

It seems like an ill conceived clone of LinkedIn.

Bangalore based CodeMunch (www.codemunch.com) is in the similar space. Service is currently in beta and provides peer-reviewed resume management.

Idea of Social Resume is here to stay.

You’re not a tool - but your resume is.

Your CV should be customized for each and every opportunity and its delivery to a prospective employer (preferably by hand) should follow some kind of meaningful face-to-face contact with a hiring advocate. If you ever want to get into the inner-circle you won’t participate in such services as VisualCV.

And stop using your real name online! The fact that you won’t be easily found through a simple Google search not only makes you mysterious, but demonstrates to your prospective employer your savvy online.

Of course, the flip-side is that, if an HR dept. is using this site, Facebook, Myspace, etc… to background check a candidate PRE-interview, and an applicant knows this, then the HR dept. has just opened themselves up to a potential suit, should you not obtain at least an interview.

This is old technology, old news, and a waste of time. Like another commenter said, it’s solves a problem that doesn’t exist.