Have you heard that the resume is dead?  No?  Because a host of career pundits seem to think so.

Sometimes, change comes at glacial speeds and this is one of those cases.  Let's look at the practicalities.  Right now, every major employer and most of the minor ones are heavily invested in technology made to sort and process resumes. 

The vast majority of job seekers use a resume as their primary job search tool.  If an employer decides to use a different method, they essentially have to train their applicants to use it.  If job seekers decide to develop a new standard, they have to get the corporations to bend their workflow around it.  Neither seems likely.

But the new spate of tools designed to help job seekers represent their professional experience online show just why people are pondering the resume's demise.

The most known player in this arena is LinkedIn.  LinkedIn offers professionals a way to keep in contact with their professional networks in addition to showing off their work history.  With recent developments such as a LinkedIn status message and blog integration, it's becoming a more interactive career resource.

VisualCV offers a clean, well-organized interface with a focus on creating a multimedia professional presentation.  Its profiles are visually attractive and very usable, and make a great supplement to a resume.

But you'll notice that I said "supplement."  Because for now, if you apply for a job with a simple "See resume here:" the response is likely to be lukewarm.  Until more corporations, and their recruitment systems, embrace the social media revolution, the paper resume is here to stay.