"If I knew they spent 70% of their time on Java and they have around 5% familiarity with Ruby now that's telling me something of value. (...) While obviously nothing is perfect I think the idea of adding weighted cues for skill sets is something missing from the current resume model."
Odesk includes the hours worked on a given project. Even so: I'm not sure that tells me if the programmer has any real fluency. I suppose measures like that and/or certifications are the closest thing to what you're asking for... But maybe a Topcoder ranking and/or contractor satisfaction index for the sought-after skill set would be more relevant...something/anything which quantifies narrative comments from hiring parties, or contextualizes a programmer among their peers...that would be more valuable to me.
"If you were to pair this with a data output that is machine readable, google's problem of 75,000 resume's per week could be significantly made easier to wade through. HR people in enterprise companies look for keywords, bottom line."
People who sift through resumes look for keywords. Interviewers, hiring managers, business owners look for something else... How many interviews have you been on where the interviewer picks up the resume, glances at it, sets it down, and then proceeds to ask questions clearly indicating they did not read the resume? That's the real disconnect in the present resume model. Rather than build a machine readable way to screen fluency, or allow oneself to be charmed by the most visually disruptive document, why not build a better way for employers to simply test--en masse--for certain personal qualities AND technical qualifications? (Heck...deficiencies in psychometrics and testing methodology is a real bottleneck in America's capacity to suss out competency...in any number of domains. I love tests like the GRE which offer questions, for example, like "An Apple is to an Orange like a Doctor is to a A) Veternarian, B) Osteopath, C) Architect, or D) Accountant." How the hell is someone who's not a native speaker supposed to answer a question like that?) Often what's needed to get the job done is too subtle to communicate on any number of pages...or "pages" as they exist now, and it'd be a stretch for any machine to vibe out a candidate to such an extent. It's probably why video resumes are so useful.
Odesk includes the hours worked on a given project. Even so: I'm not sure that tells me if the programmer has any real fluency. I suppose measures like that and/or certifications are the closest thing to what you're asking for... But maybe a Topcoder ranking and/or contractor satisfaction index for the sought-after skill set would be more relevant...something/anything which quantifies narrative comments from hiring parties, or contextualizes a programmer among their peers...that would be more valuable to me.
"If you were to pair this with a data output that is machine readable, google's problem of 75,000 resume's per week could be significantly made easier to wade through. HR people in enterprise companies look for keywords, bottom line."
People who sift through resumes look for keywords. Interviewers, hiring managers, business owners look for something else... How many interviews have you been on where the interviewer picks up the resume, glances at it, sets it down, and then proceeds to ask questions clearly indicating they did not read the resume? That's the real disconnect in the present resume model. Rather than build a machine readable way to screen fluency, or allow oneself to be charmed by the most visually disruptive document, why not build a better way for employers to simply test--en masse--for certain personal qualities AND technical qualifications? (Heck...deficiencies in psychometrics and testing methodology is a real bottleneck in America's capacity to suss out competency...in any number of domains. I love tests like the GRE which offer questions, for example, like "An Apple is to an Orange like a Doctor is to a A) Veternarian, B) Osteopath, C) Architect, or D) Accountant." How the hell is someone who's not a native speaker supposed to answer a question like that?) Often what's needed to get the job done is too subtle to communicate on any number of pages...or "pages" as they exist now, and it'd be a stretch for any machine to vibe out a candidate to such an extent. It's probably why video resumes are so useful.