Gen Alpha Will Never Write a Résumé. Here’s What Will Replace It.

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Let’s just admit it: Résumés are dying.

If you’re still counting on a perfectly formatted PDF to land your next hire or your next job, you might as well be faxing it. Or better yet, send a carrier pigeon. Because in 2025, résumés are more often filtered and scanned than read, at least by a human being that is.

The reality is, Gen Alpha, whose oldest member is 12-years-old today, will likely never have to use a résumé. Long gone will be the days of career coaches agonizing over every word and bullet point, or even LinkedIn gurus arguing whether your profile introduction should be written in the first or third person.

But if the resume disappears, what does that mean for the future of workers? How will employers hire? Do all of those “resume-builder” extracurricular activities matter anymore? Will workers be as qualified?

The reality is, we are already seeing the demise of the traditional resume. Apply for a job today, and you’ll likely be auto-rejected within seconds. No screening call. No “thank you.” Just a (sometimes) polite algorithm saying you didn’t make the cut. Just wait until I share the reason why one guy got the automatic “rejection” letter in just a moment.

This is all a sign: the system is breaking. And Gen Alpha, the generation now entering middle school, will likely never use a résumé at all. At least not as we know them today.

From Da Vinci to Dashboards (And Back Again)

To understand where we’re headed, it helps to know where we started.

Résumé, the word itself, comes from the French word résumer, meaning to summarize. Early accounts of where the résumé began differ, but most concur that it started with none other than Leonardo da Vinci. As the story goes, in 1482, Da Vinci wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan listing his skills, including catapult design, and secured the job. It was less of a résumé and more of a bold pitch.

Fast forward to the 20th century, résumés became expected. Then required. Then standardized. By the 1990s, we were formatting them in Word. In 2003, LinkedIn made them searchable. By 2010, they were no longer just documents, they were digital identities.

Now, with the “Easy Apply” button and online job application platforms, résumés are flooding HR inboxes. To exacerbate the problem is the fact that those receiving government-supported unemployment benefits often have a quota of applications they must submit to maintain their benefit. So, people have become trigger-happy with that “apply” button.

Due to the massive influx and ease of submitting a résumé, companies have had to turn to technology, and most recently AI to search through job applicants, eliminate mismatches and elevate prospective candidates.

Today, roughly 85% of U.S. recruiters use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) to scan résumés before a human ever sees them (Forbes, 2024). Harvard Business Review found that 88% of qualified candidates are filtered out by these systems, often because of formatting, missing keywords, or rigid logic trees (HBR, 2022).

That means that 9 out of every 10 truly qualified candidates are rejected before actually being considered.

One viral LinkedIn post told the story of a candidate getting rejected because their birthday was listed as April 20th, 4/20 (if you don’t know, ask a Boomer, they started it in 1971), and the algorithm flagged it as “unprofessional.” You can read Andrew Rice’s post that shares it here.

True or not, it hits a nerve because it feels true.

Another job seeker, Rushika Rai, explains her quest of trying to get a job for over 90 days with zero callbacks. She then took her resume and ran it through this series of prompts on ChatGPT. She claims that within a week of modifying her resume with ChatGPT, she received 5 call-backs.

Similarly, Cassie Haxton shares on LinkedIn how she went to 4 - 6 interviews per week using AI to revamp her résumé to help it navigate through the AI ATS systems. She also was careful to talk about the importance of the human element in applying to a job.

This is what we’ve built: a hiring system where your specific verb choice matters more than your character, where strategic word placement matters more than your experience, and where your résumé is more likely to be read by a robot than a human being.

But the Death of the Résumé Might Be a Good Thing

I don’t think this is a sad story. I think it’s a necessary shift.

We are moving rapidly toward a skills-first, proof-based, and portfolio-driven hiring world. And Gen Alpha will likely lead that charge. Even my kids receive a portfolio in their preschool that is handed over to them when they “graduate” from Pre-Kindergarten to showcase all they’ve accomplished. Sitting on the advisory board of a top-ranked university, I am also seeing many students graduating with portfolios. And these aren’t just art students, but business students and psychology and political science and chemistry students.

A fascinating article in TIME, outlines the shifting focus of skills over scores. You can read the article here. In short, it provides several insights about trends in education moving towards more competency-based and skill-based outcomes.

GPAs, like credit scores, can work well for some, but for others, one mistimed step or unconventional path can unfairly define their future. “Seat time” (as the article refers to time in class) is no reflection of aptitude. For example, let me be vulnerable quickly. I had perfect attendance in undergrad. I did not miss a single class. Not one. But my transcript didn’t reflect my capabilities because I may have slacked on an assignment or two hoping my attendance would buy back some good will. In fact, one accounting assignment I flunked. Thankfully, that professor let me flip the script. I made a deal with him. I printed out the books from the business I was running at the time and asked him to grade that instead. He agreed to replace my test grade with the grade of my actual work, which went from a failure to an A. That competency-based learning was an anomaly more than a decade and a half ago. However, I believe that such competency-based approaches are actually becoming more widely accepted.

We’re not going résumé-free. We’re going résumé-irrelevant.

Where We're Headed: From Paper to Proof

Here’s what’s taking the résumé’s place…and this is by no means a comprehensive list, just a few high-level categories:

• Portfolios over PDFs – Designers, developers, marketers, and content creators are already showcasing their work in real-time. Expect this across industries.

• Micro-credentials and certifications – Short-form, skill-based education is replacing the one-size-fits-all degree. Google, Salesforce, and Coursera are building verifiable ecosystems for this. Even Harvard Business School, Stanford, and Cornell are offering these bite-sized certifications.

• Try Before You Buy– Companies are piloting “audition-style” interviews with real-world assignments or simulations before even reviewing a résumé. Sometimes this takes the form of project deliverables or even contract-to-full opportunities.

And here's the twist: this isn’t new.

In many ways, we’re returning to a Silent Generation mindset, where people were hired for specific skills. They were plumbers, pharmacists, attorneys, butchers, engineers. Not "cross-functional project managers.” Their value was tangible. It was specific.

As I always argue, generations swing like a pendulum, we overreact, correct, and fall back into former patterns, just with new technologies or knowledge or just in a different moment in time.

AI Isn’t the Villain…But It’s Not the Sole Answer, Either

We need to talk about AI.

I don’t think AI is inherently bad for hiring. In fact, I think every leader should be using AI to accelerate workflows, summarize applications, and streamline screening. But we can’t ignore the tradeoffs.

AI doesn’t just replicate bias, it can amplify it. When you remove the human from human resources, you also risk removing culture, nuance, and instinct. Hiring isn’t just about who checks the boxes. It’s about who fits the team. Who brings unexpected value. Who has walked through things a résumé will never show.

Personally? Some of my most defining credentials were never résumé-worthy:

• Navigating the tragic death of a team member

• Cleaning up after executive-level fraud

• Managing through burnout, conflict, or chaos that never made it into the metrics

Those are the scars that shaped how I lead. They’re invisible in a PDF, but unforgettable in a room.

So What Should Leaders Do Now?

This is the moment for leaders to get ahead of the shift. If the résumé is dying, it’s time to think about your own organization. How are you currently hiring? How are you accurately filtering through candidates to make sure that you are getting the right person on the bus? What are you doing to look past the ATS tracking system and get the right person on board?

At the last company I ran, our application included a recorded intro video, introducing yourself. That video was then displayed on our “team” page if you ended up getting hired. We wanted to build a culture of the right people, not just the people with the words that appease a robot’s idea of a good candidate.

Start thinking in portfolios, not pedigrees. Look for projects, not just positions. Prioritize readiness over résumé polish. All-in-all, look for a cultural fit. One that believes in your mission and wants to run alongside your team to accomplish your goals.

And maybe, just maybe, start reading between the lines. Because Gen Alpha won’t hand you a list of jobs they’ve had in a certain format. They’ll hand you proof of what they’ve built.

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