Are CVs Outdated and Dead?

A discussion article. Part of The Thinking Upgrade.

‍

How much of a human being can we really understand from a few pages?

A list of job titles. Some qualifications. Carefully selected achievements. A personal statement, polished until it sounds confident, capable and perhaps remarkably similar to everyone else’s.

Where, in all of this, do we see how someone thinks? How they learn, respond to constructive challenge, work with others and turn ideas into positive impact? Where do we see what they can do now, what they are becoming capable of, and the support that helps them perform at their best?

Are CVs outdated and dead? Or is it the idea that a CV provides sufficient insight into a person’s capabilities and potential that needs to end?

Imagine an increasingly competitive, technology-enabled world in which we ask people to demonstrate far more than where they have worked. We want to understand the value they could create, the problems they could help solve and the future they could help build.

Would a static document still be enough?

We are all human. Our memories are limited. We forget projects, conversations, insights and lessons. We struggle to retrieve the right example at the right moment. We can underestimate our abilities, overestimate them or find it difficult to explain what comes naturally to us.

Someone might have years of valuable experience yet struggle to articulate it in an interview. Another might present a compelling account of their abilities that is difficult to substantiate. How well does a recruitment process distinguish confidence in describing a capability from evidence of using it?

We are all whole people, with whole lives.

‍

We are partners, parents, children, friends, carers, colleagues, neighbours and citizens. We have interests, responsibilities, hopes, limitations and experiences that reach far beyond paid employment. What happens in one part of our lives can shape how we think, feel and act in another. The patience we develop at home, the ingenuity we bring to a community project and the perspective gained through a difficult experience can influence the contribution we make at work.

How much of this richness disappears when we reduce a person to a professional timeline? And how much potential remains unseen because someone’s most relevant learning happened outside a recognised job title?

Consider the parent who has developed exceptional patience and organisation. The carer who navigates complexity with empathy and persistence. The volunteer who brings people together. The person who has changed direction, returned to learning or built something independently.

How could we make relevant capabilities more visible without expecting every life to follow the same path?

What if each of us had a live, work-in-progress Detailed Digital Record?

‍

Imagine a record that develops with us throughout our lives: a living account of who we are, what has shaped us, what we know and can do, and what we are becoming capable of. Its first purpose would be to help us understand, manage and lead our whole lives more effectively. Recruitment would be one of many uses for selected parts of it.

‍

At its heart would be our developing levels of self-awareness, self-knowledge, self-understanding and self-management.

What do we notice about our thoughts, emotions, attention and behaviour as situations unfold? What do we know about our values, beliefs, biases, needs, motivations, personality, capabilities and health? How well do we understand why we respond as we do, the conditions that help us thrive and the impact we have on others? How effectively can we use that understanding to manage our choices, habits, energy, relationships and responses?

These would become concrete areas to explore and develop, with evidence of progress. Could we recognise when our confidence exceeds our knowledge? Explain what triggers an unhelpful response? Show how feedback has changed our behaviour? Notice when our ambitions are out of step with the time and energy available to us?

The record could bring together our internal view with external perspectives: observations from people who know and work with us, input from coaches and other relevant professionals, AI-assisted analysis and appropriate assessments. Agreements and differences between those perspectives would be useful starting points for reflection. Assessment results and AI interpretations would need their source, context and limitations made clear; none would provide a complete or final verdict on a person.

It could make visible the breadth, depth and diversity of what has entered our lives – and what we have made of it.

Imagine being able to explore the things we know and how we came to know them. The subjects we have studied, qualifications gained, books and research read, courses completed, conversations held, people learnt from, places visited, cultures encountered and experiences lived. The ideas we have agreed with, the perspectives that challenged us and the questions that changed our minds.

The ambition could be to build as rich a record as we choose of our lifetime inputs, while recognising that no record could capture everything. Crucially, it could distinguish exposure from understanding: encountering a subject, explaining it, applying it and developing deep expertise are different things. What have we retained? What can we connect across disciplines? Where is our knowledge narrow, outdated or missing?

Alongside those inputs could sit the contributions we have made: original and distinctive ideas, inventions, improvements, problems solved, decisions made, actions taken and lessons learnt. What did we notice that others had overlooked? What did we create? What alternatives did we consider? What happened, who benefited and what would we do differently now?

‍

It could also hold the opportunities we see ahead.

Imagine a growing account of opportunities for greater levels of success, wellbeing and positive impact – in our own lives, families, communities, organisations and the wider world. Problems we believe could be solved. Needs we could help meet. Ideas we want to test. Futures we want to help create. Each could develop from an initial observation into a considered possibility, with the questions, collaborators, resources and next steps needed to explore it.

This could help us recognise potential that a retrospective CV would rarely reveal: the contribution someone is preparing to make.

‍

And it could describe, in practical detail, the roles, tasks and activities we can perform – and at what level of proficiency.

Beyond a broad claim such as ‘experienced manager’, we could explore the specific activities involved: facilitating a difficult conversation, analysing a budget, developing a colleague, designing a service or making a decision under uncertainty. The record could show what we can do with guidance, independently, in complex circumstances or well enough to help others develop. It could include evidence, recency, conditions and the human or technological support involved.

That same detail could extend across our whole lives, reflecting capabilities developed through caring, parenting, volunteering, creative work, sport, study and community participation.

‍

Our AI and Tech maturity would form part of that picture.

How well can we choose suitable tools, integrate them into everyday activities, evaluate their outputs, protect information and recognise when human judgement or expertise is needed? Where are we using technology thoughtfully, and where are we adding cost and complexity without worthwhile benefit?

The record could also describe the sophistication of our AI Partners: the knowledge they can draw on, the context we have helped them develop, the tools they can use, the tasks they have demonstrated they can support and the permissions within which they operate. How reliably do they help us? How do we test and improve them? What do they enable us to achieve together?

‍

Imagine seeing this whole picture evolve

Our understanding of ourselves, the richness of our learning, the capabilities we can demonstrate, the opportunities we recognise and the support we are developing. What new possibilities might we see in ourselves – and in one another?

Someone claiming to be a strong problem-solver could show the problem, the alternatives considered, the contribution they personally made and what happened afterwards. Someone describing themselves as a thought fulleader could include relevant feedback from people they have led, supported andworked alongside.

Across this whole-life record, we would need to distinguish between what we say about ourselves, what other humans have observed, what AI has inferred, what assessments suggest and what has been demonstrated in practice. It could show when evidence was gathered, the circumstances in which a capability was used and whether it remains current. Where perspectives disagree, the record could preserve that uncertainty and invite further exploration.

No human is perfect. We all have strengths, limitations, blind spots and areas in which we need support. These records could help create more rounded and realistic pictures of people, reducing the pressure to present an inflated version of ourselves. Achievements could sit alongside the contribution of others, the circumstances that enabled success, the mistakes we learnt from and the capabilities we are still developing. That would make room for a more honest statement: “This is what I can demonstrate today. This is where I still need support. This is what I am learning next.”

‍

What if being visibly work-in-progress became a sign of responsibility and ambition?

Such a record would need to allow us to change. An old mistake should not become a permanent definition of who we are. An old success should not be treated as proof of what we can still do. There would need to be space for context, correction, growth and a fair opportunity to demonstrate improvement.

The CV might then become a useful introduction: a concise, relevant view drawn from a much richer record, with permission to explore selected evidence further.

‍

But the record is only part of the possibility.

‍

What happens when it works together with sophisticated AI Partners?

Imagine an AI Partner that, with our permission, could help us navigate this whole-life record. It could connect something we learnt years ago with a problem in front of us today, help us identify capabilities developed in one role that could be valuable in another, and draw attention to opportunities that match our interests, values and ambitions. It could help us update our record, test our understanding and prepare for challenges ahead.

Before a difficult conversation, it might help us reflect on what happened in similar situations and consider another person’s perspective. During a complex task, where assistance is appropriate, it might help us test assumptions, find relevant information and examine possible consequences. Afterwards, it could help us review what we learnt and what deserves to be captured.

Could that create a more continuous relationship between experience, reflection, learning and improved action?

Could development become something we practise in the flow of life, supported by a partner that helps us remember what we intended to change?

The quality of that partnership would matter enormously. An AI Partner that merely reinforces our preferred view of ourselves could make our blind spots harder to see. A more useful partner would help us ask better questions, recognise uncertainty and seek feedback from other people.

Its suggestions would still need scrutiny. A detailed digital record would not make an AI infallible, and a confident interpretation of our history would not necessarily be accurate.

Could our AI Partners become extensions of ourselves?

In a practical sense, perhaps they could extend the knowledge and insights we can access, the possibilities we can explore and the actions we can carry out. Over time, we might shape them around our purposes, values, responsibilities and preferred ways of working.

Yet we would still need to understand which judgements we are making ourselves, which suggestions come from an AI and what we are choosing to delegate.

If we cannot explain or evaluate the advice we follow, how much have we increased our capability? What should we remain able to do independently? And where could working well with AI become a capability worth demonstrating in its own right?

These questions could transform the interview.

Imagine an interview in which human interviewers and authorised AI Agents engage with both a candidate and their AI Partner.

The candidate could explain their ambitions, reasoning and decisions. Their AI Partner could, within agreed boundaries, help retrieve relevant evidence and identify the limits of what that evidence supports. Together, they could work through a realistic challenge.

Interviewers might ask: “What can you do independently? What can you achieve with your AI Partner? Show us how you recognise an incorrect suggestion. Explain where you would seek human expertise. What happens when your usual tools are unavailable?”

The candidate could also question the organisation and its AI representatives. What evidence supports its claims about culture, development and leadership? What would the role actually involve? What support would be available?

Could this become a more useful, mutual exploration of how people and organisations might succeed together?

It would require clear agreements about permitted assistance, confidentiality and what was being assessed. An AI Partner should not invent evidence, disclose someone else’s information or answer in ways that conceal the candidate’s lack of understanding.

Access would matter too. How would we avoid confusing the ability to afford a sophisticated AI Partner with a person’s potential? Could organisations provide comparable tools for practical assessments, alongside opportunities to demonstrate independent capabilities?

Who would control the Detailed Digital Record?

‍

The whole-life scope makes personal control essential.

In this vision, each of us would control who sees what and what access is given – to other people, organisations and AI Partners or Agents.

We would decide which parts remain private, which are shared, for what purpose and for how long. Permissions could distinguish between viewing selected information, contributing feedback and using information in an AI-assisted assessment, with the ability to review, change or withdraw future access. We could use the full record privately to support our own development, while sharing carefully selected views for particular purposes. A prospective employer might see relevant capability evidence and examples of human–AI collaboration; they would not need unrestricted access to private reflections, health information, family circumstances or every mistake someone had ever made. Recognising a whole person should go hand in hand with respecting their boundaries.

Could we design records that are portable, selective and under meaningful personal control? Could people correct errors, challenge interpretations and move their records between providers? How would confidential work be evidenced without taking an organisation’s information with us?

These choices would shape whether the idea builds trust.

‍

Perhaps the most exciting possibility is what this could do for our individuality.

‍

Each of us has a particular combination of experiences, interests, relationships, knowledge, values and ambitions. What if our records and AI Partners helped us understand that combination more clearly and develop it more intentionally?

Someone might discover that their strongest contribution lies at the intersection of two fields they had previously kept separate. Another might recognise a capability that colleagues value but they have always taken for granted. Someone else might find a new direction by connecting a personal passion with an unmet need.

Could we become increasingly distinctive in the value we create through greater self-understanding, deliberate development and thoughtful use of AI?

That would depend on how we use the technology. If everyone is coached to give the same impressive answers and imitate the same ideal candidate, we could lose much of what makes people interesting. If AI helps us explore our own questions, challenge our assumptions and develop original contributions, the possibilities become far more compelling.

Our value creation potential could grow. Our worth as human beings would remain greater than anything a record or recruitment process could measure.

‍

So, are CVs outdated and dead?

‍

Perhaps the short summary will survive. But we can question how much weight we place on it, and how much richer our understanding of a person could become.

What if we could draw on a living account of our whole lives to understand ourselves more deeply, develop our distinctive capabilities and see more clearly what we could make possible with others?

And what if the question at the heart of an interview became:

 “What could you, supported by your human and AI Partners, help us achieve – and how will you keep growing your ability to contribute?”

‍

Thanks for reading.

Best,

Rob

‍

Developed by Rob Frost from his thinking and ideas, with drafting and refinement support from his AI Partner.

‍

‍