Signal Tradeoff

I have hated my résumé with a steadfast intensity for as long as I can remember. Nearly a decade ago, a kind coworker took pity on me and my very pitiable résumé and spent hours over a couple of weekends helping me workshop it. I hated the final version less, mostly because I did not have to fully own it. Even after all that effort, I do not think I would have spent more than a minute on it if it had come across my desk for a role I was hiring for. I always knew exactly what I disliked about it, but never what it would take to make it feel even remotely likeable.

So it is strange and a little satisfying to watch Elon Musk try to get rid of the résumé and cover letter in one fell swoop. I cannot tell if it helps or hurts. The three things in my career I am most proud of are tied up in deeply personal reasons. They probably would not qualify as great examples of professional excellence. And yet, if I were to write them down and tell the story behind them, that would be the most honest version of my professional self I could offer.

I am just not convinced that honesty is what closes the deal anymore. Employers seem completely unsure how much they need a human, what they need that human for, and which parts of that human can eventually be absorbed into the AI they hope will make most roles unnecessary. In that kind of environment, handing over your three strongest proof points upfront feels less like clarity and more like giving everything away before you even have a chance to be rejected.

It almost feels like a trojan horse, a move that might end up hurting candidates more than helping them. There will be a few winners, of course, but that is true even in the current system where AI generates endless variations of résumés for job postings that were also written by AI, only to be screened out by more AI. Something more fundamental is broken here. The résumé, the cover letter, even these three proof points are just surface symptoms of a deeper malaise, not the cause of it.