Unlocking Da Vinci's Resume Code

"Wow, this is the coolest thing I've seen in a while." The words instantly came pouring out when someone came to my office with what became known across the interwebs as the "Resume Toolbox".

As I curiously took it apart like one of my daughters ripping open a carefully-wrapped gift under the tree Christmas morning (for the record my wife thinks I'm the world's worst gift wrapper so let's keep carefully-wrapped loosely defined, but I digress) I was unsure exactly what I was looking at. What I ended up finding was something more powerful than a resume.

10 years ago who could have imagined the impact of social media on recruitment and selection? It's truly fascinating how much the landscape has evolved. I was interviewed recently about what next big thing we would look back on 10 years from today that would shift the tectonic plates of recruitment. My answer was the elimination of the resume as we know it.

Where's Robert Langdon?

Factoid of the day: Leonardo da Vinci is father Odin to today's resume Thor. Surprised? That’s right, Da Vinci is credited with authoring the first incarnation of the resume back in the 1400's with a clever letter sent to the Duke of Milan in 1482. Pretty awesome stuff for us novice writing geeks out there. Check out this Business Insider article for more on Da Vinci's epic resume.

It begs the question...have we become too conditioned to seeing resumes delivered in the same form?

The most dangerous phrase in the language is "We've Always Done it This Way!" - Grace Hopper

Resumes weren't always pieces of paper. Methods of declaration of skill and ability for professional hire dates to the dawn of time.

Let's jump in the phone booth for a moment with my most excellent friends, Bill and Ted and take an adventure. 

First stop, ancient Egypt, circa 3000 BC. Pharaohs ruled civilizations. Pyramids were erected to honor Ra. Egyptian culture was filled with outdoor markets where crafts, barley, wheat, fruits, animals and goods were bartered. Ancient Egyptians leveraged skill and ability for meaningful trade and hire through ready made examples to sustain their homes and lives.

Next stop, Middle Ages, circa 450 A.D. The time of kings, the knights of the vale, dragons and the seven kingdoms. The Lannisters, the Starks...hold on, wrong story. Blacksmiths, shipbuilders and woodworkers were sought for their skills and craftsmanship. They were vetted, chosen and hired to build flame throwing catapults, swords, armor, fleets of floating sea vessels for conquering vast empires - with payment coming in the form of coin, land and title.

Final stop, Renaissance Period, circa 1400. The bridge between the middle ages and modern civilization, where artisans delivered proclamations of skill and expertise of craft via paintings, sculptures, breads, wines, jewelry and other goods. Trade expanded and small business operation within city markets flourished. This was also the era of the father of the first resume, Leonardo da Vinci. By now you know that Da Vinci had heard the Duke needed military engineers and so Da Vinci was moved to make an extraordinary proclamation of skill for professional gain - and it worked! 10 years later the Duke even hired Da Vinci to paint the Last Supper.

For centuries before resume pen hit paper or keyboard stroke hit Word, people have been crafting various ways to create powerful displays of skill and ability.

Ok, back in the phone booth. "Rufus, warp us back to 2016. Hold on! Socrates, dude...Athens needs you. You can't stay in San Dimas with us."

20,000 Millennial Leagues Under the Sea

Last year we received over 20,000 applicants to our internship program. It's humbling when you begin to realize so many Millennials identify what matters most to them in a career with The Home Depot.

226 young Da Vinci's helped lay the talent bedrock for the future of the company by infusing their ambition, ideas, skills and global experiences into our business as the intern class of 2016. Their projects were vetted by leadership teams. They were assigned mentors and fireside chats with our executives on an almost weekly basis and were given full access to our business. They even presented out to senior leadership!

I was so proud and so impressed with all of them. We all were. The chances of 20 year old me successfully delivering 3 ways to improve our interconnected retail strategy to our leadership team would have hovered somewhere between none and zero. It would have been a soapbox face-plant. An epic crash and burn. No kidding.

Thank goodness someone threw me a bone at a young age by handing me a phone (with a 19 foot tangled, spiral cord), a job description and a pile of resumes. Most importantly though - stuffing me in a cube to skin my knees on my own in semi seclusion. Get up in front of a leadership team and executive officers? Me? Who are you kidding??? Waiter! Check please. Exit stage left.

Inspiring a Movement

When I took apart the resume toolbox I was reminded by how much more there is to people beyond what a resume tells of them. By the time I got to the PVC tube which contained a resume (watermarked with our Let's Do This slogan in orange might I add), we had already taken a journey through someone's mind discovering how they perceived a resume. How they interpreted an introduction. We saw a brain processing challenge and adapting content, messaging, user experience, product and physical example into a solution. It was inspiring. The kinds of things not found on a resume.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I never imagined a picture would touch almost 2 million people. I watched yesterday as the views counter disappeared into the analytics abyss. (Linkedin limits status update views counters from profile pages to 30 days).

What did I see? A whopping 1,743,000 views and rising by the nanosecond! Let that sink in. That's greater than the population of 11 states in the U.S. For SEO and web traffic pros, I get it, it's probably "nothing to see here, move along", but ordinary HR Joes living the dream and sharing day to day glimpses of #hrlife? It compares to Doc erupting out of the sky in the Delorean in a titanic flash of lightning, blowing open the gull-wing door and telling you to get in!

The Da Vinci like approach also inspired over 21,000 people to engage, comment, like and share it. It generated positive emotions for thousands in the same way as it did me. It was amazing to watch. Friends tagged friends. Parents tagged their college-aged kids. Pros shared with pros. Dogs shared with cats. Marriage proposals erupted across the world. Ok maybe not the last two. "How creative!", "Awesome!", "Way to think outside the box!", "Inspiring!" were just a few of the many thousands of comments we saw.

The resume toolbox set forth a wave of positive inspiration that will surely spark more conversation of how we continue to perceive the utilization of the modern resume. Resumes are ripe for disruption. So are job descriptions. What is the long-term impact of programmatic talent evaluation? Musings for another day.

The resume toolbox unlocked Da Vinci's original resume "code" - an eloquent presentation of one's skills in a powerful, visual, unorthodox manner.

We always tell students the best part about our internship program is the ability to deliver incredibly powerful business insights and actual solutions which could have an impact on millions of people. A chance to leave a mark and begin the story of your career. To begin your orange path.

The ending to the resume toolbox story everyone was waiting for? I'm happy to say that Cole will be joining the Home Depot on our Marketing team working on media strategy next summer. The rest of his story? Well that's yet to be written, but Da Vinci also took a bold chance and we know how that worked out.

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic. Advice to other readers? Suggestions? Your comments and ideas are welcome below!

Also, if you are interested in reading my latest posts please click 'follow'.

Here are some recent posts I've written:

• The Day Recruiting Died
• The Millennial Arms Race
• Why Intellectual Capital Trumps All
• My First Job: How French Fries Fueled My Career

About the author: Philip is a proud dad to two daughters, husband and avid DIY'r who is deeply passionate about recruiting and enjoys putting pen to paper every now and then in the hope that someone reading finds a pebble of humor or inspiration within an ocean of much more credible content widely available.

Connect with Philip on Twitter @newman or on LinkedIn.