Domain names are cheap. Websites are pretty easy to develop. There's a proliferation of sites in the social & professional networking scene that allow fairly lengthy profiles to be built. Recruiters are using all of these media to dig deeper into our candidates lives already. We all know this stuff. The question is, when do you think document that we know now will replaced as the "king of resumes"? I don't think they'll ever completely go away, but there is a time in the not so distant future where we will be asking candidates for a link to their profile as opposed to an attachment. Or we may just be plugging their name into Google... wait a minute - I'm already doing that!

I'm the last of the baby boom generation, the generations that have grown up behind me have grown up on the grid. Kids from junior high and on are almost universally growing up very web savvy with Facebook & MySpace accounts, instant messaging and instant information. It's the norm in their lives. I believe as they get into the workforce they will discover sites like LinkedIn & Plaxo and see their value in marketing themselves as professionals. I also know that technological improvements to those (and other) sites will make it seamless with those seeking employees. Think about this - your ATS probably integrates with the major social networking boards already and if it doesn't it soon will. Old guys like me will hang on to the paper / attachment resume format for as long as we can, but 10 years from now I doubt you'll see many organizations asking to submit a Word document resume for consideration.

Which brings up an important point. Listen very closely Gen X, Y & Z. The life you live online is the life that will be reflected to your future employers. One only needs to visit a social networking site to see how transparent our lives have become. We'll know who your friends are, we'll know some of your personal philosophy, we'll know if you like to express your displeasure with your job and we'll probably even know if you got drunk last Saturday night. I know you've heard it before but it bears repeating. The anonymity of the internet is gone and we're watching.