I had an idea for a column on the blog, Steal This Idea, where I will provide an idea and anyone reading this is welcome to steal it.  To clarify, I’m going to be providing ideas that I have thought of and for one reason or another decided not to pursue further.  I don’t feel the need to write an explanation post for each idea and why I did not pursue it.  Suffice to say that while I think many of the ideas that will be presented are quality ideas (and some may not be!) I just don’t have a passion for the space they are in.  For me in discovering what I want in life and in my pursuit of “starting up”, I’ve discovered that passion is extremely important.  So, with that said… if you have a passion for one of these ideas that come up as a result of this, steal it!

Let’s face it — the application process is broken.  Paper resumes are outdated, take too long to sort through, and make a lot of clutter.  In fact, the new resume is not so much a collection of where you have worked and your title but your experiences and presence online.  The idea then is actually two-fold.

1. While I think the ‘new’ resume will certainly replace the old within the next few years, the previous iteration does still provide market opportunity for entrepreneurs and the right type of company.
2. The new resume will simply be an aggregation tool inside of HR departments that pull-in all your online presence.  Everything from your personal website, blog, any comments you post on Facebook, or videos on YouTube.

Thus, if someone could be an application similar to the twitter listening tools that aggregates content and pulls it into one stream.  After doing so the application allows threaded comments (similar to a Facebook style comment system) from internal resources.  So for instance, an HR manager and hiring manager can comment on the “resume” / application and decide to bring the person in for an interview.  The application would need to have export abilities into HRM and payroll applications for managing employees once they are hired.

In addition, not every applicant is the right fit for the jobs they apply to.  If I was an HR manager and had a person apply to a job that they were not the right fit for, but had friends who were also in the field that I thought the person would be a good fit for… I would gladly pass them along. Thus, establish a “bank” of applicants into the application that HR managers can share between each other.

If someone does seriously want to pursue this idea, please contact me.  When going through this idea I prepared some market research that I would be happy to share to the right person.

I want this to be interactive with the readers of this blog, if you dislike this column… tell me.  If you love it… tell me.  Or if you have any ideas that you would not mind being ’stolen’ post them in the comments or email me.