[incision]

I had the same thought.

I don't just question the ever-growing list of must-have profiles and time required to maintain them, but their value in general.

It feels like a sort of arms race to engineer and automate hiring.

It's generally agreed that actually sitting down and talking with a person is strongest source of signal [1] in the hiring model, but rather than focusing on that the model is continually stuffed with a growing set of noisy variables (profiles).

At what point does this filtering start identifying the best profile builders as opposed to the best or brightest employees? Does hiring become a full-on game of prep services and checklists of activities along the lines of college admissions?

1: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b...

[vicbrooker]

I think the critical role for tech in recruiting is to help work out who to meet, not to replace the conversation. It's definitely an arms race to turn the 1000 resumes into 10 people to be interviewed, but I don't even know where to begin taking it past that realistically.

The first automation software for the full hiring process is a going to be a very well marketed solution, not necessarily an effective one.

Ideally, I would see less of a need for specialist recruiters as tech has made connecting with appropriate hires simple enough for someone from the team the hire will work with to conduct interviews.

There's already an element of SEO-style optimisation in resumes as it is. I have a few outside-the-box approaches on how to get around this and I'll be doing a Show HN once I have something together :)