Delete your CV and your Linkedin account - join a DAO instead

One of the most surprising things about the job market to me, is that it has stuck to the same norms for a very long time. Discrimination, subjectivity, difficulty in evaluating and validating skills. It's more than ripe for big disruptions.

And it starts with a piece of paper.

CVs are dead

Can you summarize yourself in one page?

Whether you have no work experience or a 20 year career, that's what a CV (and recruiters) expect of you.

It's true, the point is that you need to be synthetic and concise. But how is it possible that something that worked such a long time ago still does, considering how much has changed?

CVs currently have big problems:

• 📃 Format - Aside from being digitalized, it's mostly the same format as it was 100 years ago.

• 🏃‍♂️ Competition - Higher education used to be for few, now it's for most. Is saying 'I can do x or y' still sufficient?

• 🔍 Validation - 30-50% of job seekers lie in their CVs. How do you validate skills and claims from a piece of paper?

• 🧬️ Generalization - Whether you're a rocket scientist or copywriter you need to use the same approach.

• 🎯 Incomplete Portrayal - Your resume is a representation of your professional identity, but doesn’t lend itself well to sharing soft skills, goals, and aspirations.

Linkedin is dead

Some will say Linkedin is a solution.

But what does Linkedin really add vs a CV? Ultimately, it's just a place to put up the webpage for your CV.

Linkedin's core offering was the network, in exchange for your CV being placed on there - and therefore you, being the product.

That was true at the start, but now with the scale it has, it's just become like a modern day Yellow Pages. A social marketplace and job board: recruiters use it to scout talent, people use it to find jobs and apply.

Yet again, some big cracks are showing up:

• 😢 'Cringe' feed - Vast majority of posts on Linkedin's feed are a variation of: 'So excited to be a part of company A', 'We just launched product X', 'We just got Y amount of funding' and some other terrible posts (hand clap voting, etc). Where is the value? Where is authenticity?

• 🗑 Spam - Sales automation tools love using Linkedin to fake personalized messages that follow you endlessly through time.

• 👶 GenZ doesn't use it - 80% of GenZ have a Linkedin profile. Yet 50% never open it. The data speaks for itself, and is destined to get worse.

Some Alternative Approaches

Do we need another new social network with such a broad scope?

It looks like we're going through a major 'unbundling' phase (these are cyclical - bundle, unbundle, bundle and so on) at the moment, with people looking for smaller, more niche communities where they can hang out with similar professionals. This certifies that content is good, and that you can really network and get to know the ones participating.

There are a few who are building potential alternatives to cater to new generations and the changing nature of work.

🌐 Social Networks

• Polywork - a Twitter-style social feed where professionals can post updates about what they’re up to. With funding from some top Silicon Valley VCs/angels, it's currently positioned to be one of the up and coming challengers. Launched in April 2021, apparently it has 10k+ users, so still very early stage.

• Fishbowl - a place to ask questions anonymously (i.e. salary info) and join skill-specific communities, live events. Since 2016, it has reached about 1M users.

🙌 Communities

• CareerKarma - less focused on job listings, more on preparation for the job market. This is yet another way that the monolithic approach to job search is broken down into smaller pieces and communities or social networks.

📹 "CV" Alternatives

• Skill-based - PitchMe tries to take a different approach by anonymizing profiles (reducing discrimination and bias) and trying to figure out your skills, both soft and hard.

• Video CV Profiles - Sizigi and Crash are two good examples of how being creative can be a way to differentiate yourself. Being able to do a good short video presentation can show some soft skills that are in high demand (public speaking, communication, critical thinking) and make your profile stand out from the pack.

The next step? Specialization and building a personal brand.

Life, in all of its aspects, is cyclical.

After the industrial revolution, the services industry was born - and for a while, it was a highly specialized industry.

Today, that industry is exactly like the industrial one at its peak; highly commoditized and competitive.

What's the only way out when you have a highly commoditized product?

You need to differentiate yourself again.

How?

1. 🔬 Specialize further - new technologies and skills are coming up by the day. Having an ear out on what's trending is more important than ever. Personally, I follow newsletters and rss feeds that are not strictly related to my industry or role, and it's often useful to get an understanding of the 'bigger' picture. You can do this by following some sources like Hacker News, or also see what people are building on sites like Product Hunt - these are all signals.

2. 🎨 Build a personal brand - just like in marketing, the most sustainable and efficient way to build a business is through its brand. You need to avoid dependence on particular channels or competing against everyone else in the same way, especially in an age when your profile is evaluated by algorythms and software.Some examples:

   1. Build a personal website (how many people add it to their application? just a small percentage). You can talk about yourself without platform specific constraints, and show other skills you may have.

   2. Share your thoughts on social media (Twitter, Instagram, etc) so that employers can see what you talk about, how people engage with you - this will provide a less 'static' picture of your personality

   3. Seek 'Guest posting' or event participation opportunities - this will show you are active in the community and are passionate about what you do, and give employers the opportunity to appreciate your thinking

3. 🖼 Let your work speak for itself - just like a picture says 1000 words, a project speaks more than a 1000 CVs. Here the sky's the limit, you can express yourself and show all of your work without constraints like you have on Linkedin.

Web3 will change everything

Web3 is a huge buzzword right now.

I remember Web 2.0 was the same, in the early 2000s.

As with all structural revolutions, we are yet to know what will be here to stay after some of the hype and bubbles (NFTs anyone?) will burst.

But all chaos brings to a new order, just like the incipit of our universe with the Big Bang.

I think the ripples of the web3 disruption will reach the job market sooner or later.

Just like we saw a huge acceleration due to the pandemic of remote working, and the crumbling of some social norms related to the workplace, people are realizing they have more tools and power than ever to build more on their own, and to customize their work and lifestyle.

Just have a look at something like Braintrust - a completely decentralized 'agency' that provides people job opportunities.

Is the future Linkedin a set of smaller communities? DAOs? We'll see.