Genres have always presented us with the problem of their tension between stasis and change. We can see this in the qualified definitions and characterizations of genre, as in Catherine Schryer�s �stabilized for now� definition (1993, p.204). Bakhtin, for instance, though establishing speech genres as the foundation of our effective speech performance, characterizes that foundation as �flexible, plastic, and free� (p.79) and �changable� (p.80).

Such changeability raises the questions of what causes genre change and, with the stunning technological developments of the past decade, how the new information and communication technologies have a role in genre change.

The role of new technological media in genre change has been explored by organizational communication researchers JoAnne Yates and Wanda Orlikowski. In their paper �Genres of Organizational Communication: A Structurational Approach to Studying Communication and Media,� they recount the history of the memo genre from the 19th century to its recent e-mail incarnation. While certain features of the memo genre are maintained in the transition from print to screen, others are changed, in part because of e-mail�s �capabilities� (p.317). For instance, they observe that e-mail�s rapidity and nonintrusiveness �may encourage individuals to use the medium for messages that are ephemeral and too incomplete to stand alone. . . � in print memo form (p.317).

Yates and Orlikowski conclude that �[t]he recent adoption of new communication media may be triggering the modification of existing genres . . . as well as the emergence of new genres� and they speculate that the form of such new genres �may, in part, reflect the capability of the media� (p.320). They call for research on �the various social, economic, and technological factors that occasion the production, reproduction, or modification of different genres in different sociohistorical contexts� (p.320) and offer as one area of study �the use of genres as instruments of impression management at the individual level� (p.320).

Following their lead, I am looking at one genre of impression management at the individual level: the resume. Despite its relative youth, the genre of the resume, in its print incarnation, has consolidated itself into what Randall Popken (1999) characterizes as a �resume formula� that �prematurely stabilizes the genre, too quickly creating closure on its possibilities� (105). Researchers such as Popken (1999) and, as well, Hutchinson and Brefka (1997, p.74) have called for research on how the resume genre, rooted in print media, might break out of its formula in the new media environment. In the new environment of the Web, the resume might evolve from what Lester Faigley (1992) critiques, in its print form, as a commodified, institutional genre (141-142) to a discourse that Popken envisions as potentially �creative� and �humane� (109) and that Tim Krause (1997) recognizes as much more expansive, dynamic, and flexible. As yet, however, despite their familiar appearance on personal homepages, little systematic research has been focused on Web resumes.

Thus, my research is guided by the problem of how the genre of the resume is managing its transition from print to the Web. What is being maintained or changed, and why?

My paper reports on a survey of authors of Web resumes. First, I�ll back up a bit and recount Popken�s research on the 20th-century emergence of the resume genre. Then I�ll briefly describe the methodology I used to sample and survey authors of Web resumes. My findings reveal both stasis and change in the genre as it migrates across media.

Randall Popken, looking at technical communication textbooks from the period from WWI to WWII, traces the resume from its emergence as �a sub-part of the letter of employment application� (100), as can be seen in this example that Popken reproduces from a 1914 textbook (see illustration), through its development as an independent genre in the mid 1920s, to its eventual adoption of the term �resume� in the middle decades of the twentieth century (104). Popken blames early textbooks� propensity to deliver formulaic instruction for the apparent rigidity of the resume genre (105), but also recognizes a potential for disruption in the genre with the advent of the Internet (109).

So it was against the backdrop of this print tradition that I set out to explore the resume in its new medium of the Web.

Quantitative Web research is always plagued by sampling challenges and my research is no exception. To collect a sample, I used the AltaVista search engine, which, unlike its much better known rivals like Google, does not use a ranking procedure that prioritizes so exclusively the most visible sites. As well, AltaVista enables country-specific searches which are surprisingly accurate, allowing me to choose from several population samples, each from different countries. To expand my sample further still beyond the elite class that tends to get found by search engines, I also conducted searches within the more proletarian population of sites posted for free by Web hosts Geocities and Tripod.

Let�s turn to the survey results. Based on the hundreds of Web resumes I observed while collecting my sample, I feel that the one hundred survey responses I received seemed to draw disproportionately from among those who were more committed to their Web sites. To illustrate how far the genre has traveled from Popken�s example from the early decades of the twentieth century, here is an illustration of one of the resumes in my sample (refer to overhead). Survey responses reveal that, on average, respondents had first posted their resume on the Web four years ago, had updated it a few times per year, had given it one or two redesign overhauls, and had usually maintained it fairly up to date at the time of the survey. Their sites are also large, with an average size of more than two hundred files of all kinds, and a surprisingly high number have their own URLs instead of the free organizational URLs that most of us use.

First, I�ll address differences between the print and Web versions of the genre.

Of those of my survey respondents who have both print and Web versions, almost 40% report that their Web resumes omit information that is included in their print resume, usually contact information such as a home phone number or home address. However, in an age of rapidly increasing identity theft (Greenspan), it is surprising just how much such information is left revealed in most resumes, perhaps a testament more to the resilience of the genre as it migrates from the confidential confines of its print incarnation to its exhibitionism on the Web. I saw home phone numbers, grade point averages, mother�s maiden names, passport numbers�the kind of thing that seems to have become naturalized in the print version of the genre. By contrast, in a survey of personal homepage publishers I conducted in 1997, close to 45% of their homepages did not make readily accessible even such basic personal information as the site author's full name (Killoran). The personal homepage, of course, was a relatively new genre and hence, unlike the resume, had no generic tradition of reporting such private information that I now see on Web resumes.

However, even as some are dropping isolated bits of info from their print resumes as they transfer them onto the Web, even more participants, about 50%, report that they add new material to their Web resume. One respondent�s (#65) explanation that his Web resume is �more exhaustive� than its print counterpart offers a fitting characterization. Typically, such exhaustive resumes include extra details that would otherwise get chopped off the one- or two-page print resume or include, more expansively, links to portfolios, actual samples of their work to supplement the genre�s indirect discourse of reporting on such work. One respondent (#55) explained the utility of the Web for such purposes: �Since my photography resume is for photography, the web gives me the opportunity to put out my portfolio, which I would not be able to do otherwise.� As this explanation implies, the Web may not offer such opportunities to those whose skills and accomplishments cannot easily be represented visually (or multimodally). Occasionally, however, the more exhaustive Web resume would also include such documentation as scanned reference letters, scanned images of awards, photographs of diplomas, and other tangible evidence of the author�s less-tangible claims, perhaps to counter-act the dubious veracity of the genre, or perhaps simply because, as Yates and Orlikowski suggest, the medium affords the capability to do such things.

Several respondents also posted several versions of their resume, either in different formats or in different levels of detail or for different kinds of jobs. Unlike the print resume, which can usually be targeted to a specific audience because we know to whom we are submitting it, the Web resume publisher confronts the anxiety of not knowing his or her audience and, in compensation, anticipates different audiences. As one respondent (#18) wrote, �My web resume is longer, representing all my work experience to date. When I submit a print resume I write something directed to a specific employer and position and keep it to two pages.�

The different formats posted on several sites in my sample and the different scale of the print and Web versions of the genre raises the possibility of new influences on the design of the resume when the 8 � by 11 inch measure of a sheet of paper is no longer a factor. A resume�s design is, of course, part of its generic essence, and so in my survey participants were asked to rank how influential the design of other documents had been in their designing of their Web resume. Not surprisingly for a group that probably already had print resumes prior to creating their Web resume, they ranked (on a scale from 0 to 4) the design of their print resume as more influential than other documents (see table #1), an indication of the perseverance of a genre across media. Revealingly, however, the influence of the design of other pages on their Web site also ranked nearly as strongly, an opposite indication of the influence of a new medium on an older genre. This may shed some light on the Web resume design process, which, in some cases, probably starts with an already-existing page on the site, perhaps from another genre, serving as a template for this new resume page, a kind of cross-fertilization of genres that we tend to see regularly in the catch-all architecture of Web sites but not as regularly with discrete and independent print documents.

Table #1: Web Resume Design Influences

How influential has the design of each of the following kinds of documents been on your designing of your own Web resume? (Please rank each design influence on a scale of 0 to 4, with zero indicating �not at all influential� and four indicating �very influential.�)
Design Influence	Ranking (from 0 to 4)
Design of my print resume	2.33
Design of other people's print resumes	1.55
Design of other people's or organizations' Web sites	1.43
Design of other people's Web resumes	1.31
Design of other pages on my own Web site	2.14

Curiously, the more easily accessible Web resumes of others still have slightly less influence on Web resume designers than do the more inaccessible print resumes of others, which suggests that Popken�s optimism about genre change being spurred by the greater dissemination of the Web resume is certainly not yet proven, at least as it applies to the genre�s design.

To understand what Web resume creators were aiming at with their resume designs, the survey asked them to choose from among a list of design aims. The results, shown in this chart (see table #2) together with the percentage of respondents who chose each design aim, suggest that respondents were thinking pragmatically about the technical capacities of the new medium more than thinking creatively about its new design opportunities.

Table #2: Web Resume Design Aims

What did you aim to achieve with your Web resume's design? (Check all that have applied at one time or another)
Design Aim	Percentage
To make my resume easy to navigate or read on the computer screen	71
To make my resume easy to print	48
To minimize downloading time	44
To create a design that looks like a traditional resume design	39
To minimize my time or effort by using a quick design	35
To create a design that takes advantage of distinctive design capabilities of the Web	31
To express my identity	31
To showcase my Web design skills	27
To do the best I could with my limited Web design skills	16

Nevertheless, almost a third claimed to be aiming for a design that takes advantage of the distinctive design capabilities of the Web, only slightly less than those that aimed to replicate a so-called �traditional resume design,� which suggests that there are competing impulses about where to take the genre in this new medium. One respondent wrote that the Web version of a resume �seemed the best way to make a resume..instead of a linear text format i could make a tabular matrixed hyperlinked resume which could enable people to browse through it the way they liked.� (#65 Q.5k ).

As I described earlier, Yates and Orlikowski observed that in the change from print memo to e-mail, the memo genre changed not only its form but also its repertoire of purposes. A similar change can be observed with the resume. One indication that the Web incarnation of the genre is serving different functions than those it has most commonly served in its print form is the finding that slightly fewer than half of the respondents have posted their resumes on Web employment sites such as Monster.com, HotJobs, CareerBuilder.com, and so forth. Indeed, when presented with a list of reasons for posting their resume on the Web, only slightly more than half chose that they had ever used their Web resume to seek new employment (see table #3).

By contrast, almost half had posted their Web resume for such ethos-building goals as enhancing their profile among colleagues within their field of employment, a task that has less precedent with print resumes since print resumes have tended not to circulate as widely. A similar percentage, almost half, use their Web resume as a way of presenting themselves to people who have no connection with their employment, again a rather unprecedented use of the genre but perhaps a use that fills a genre vacuum in a new medium that has provided no other well-established genres for self-presentation. As well, between 20% and 30% or so chose among a set of reasons those with no precedent with the traditional print resume, reasons that apply specifically to the instrumentality of the new medium, such as . . .

1. To inform visitors to the rest of my Web site about who made this site
2. To make myself part of the new medium of the World Wide Web
3. To showcase my Web design skills
4. To practice how to make a Web page

Table #3: Web Resume Purposes

Why have you posted your resume on the Web? (Check all that have applied at one time or another)
Web Resume Purpose	Percentage
To seek new employment with an employer	56
To inform people who have no potential connection with my employment about who I am	46
To seek new clients for my self_employment	45
To enhance my profile among colleagues within my profession or my field of employment	42
To inform visitors to the rest of my Web site about who made this site	32
To make myself part of the new medium of the World Wide Web	29
To showcase my Web design skills	23
To practice how to make a Web page	21
To enhance my current employment	15

Unlike the print resume, a document with a short shelf-life that usually gets hauled out and updated only on the unhappy occasion when we need to find a new job, the Web�s constant exposure is driving the genre to adopt an expanded repertoire of functions, like a Swiss army knife, with the well-maintained Web resume perhaps most notably adopting a long-term public relations function. In an inversion of the modernist dictum that form follows function, the Web version of the genre may be a versatile form that, in the absence of competing genres, finds itself adopted by default to perform new functions, or it may be a convenient form that may be adopting a repertoire of new functions to justify its unprecedented endurance. As one respondent wrote, rather cynically but revealingly, �Its probably more of an ego/completeness thing than of any concrete use in job search or self promotion.� (#38 Q.19)

In summation, I have reviewed a number of features of the Web resume which attest both to the endurance and to the flexibility of the genre as it migrates across media.

Bakhtin, M.M. (1986). Speech genres. Speech genres and other late essays. (pp.60-102). Austin: University of Texas Press.

Faigley, Lester. (1992). Fragments of Rationality: Postmodernity and the Subject of Composition. Pittsburg, PA: U. of Pittsburg Press.

Greenspan, Robyn. (2003, May 21). Consumers Lose Themselves Online. CyberAtlas.

Hutchinson, Kevin L., and Diane S. Brefka. (June 1997). Personnel Administrators� Preferences for Resume Content: Ten Years After. Business Communication Quarterly, 60.2, 67-75.

Killoran, John. (Winter 2000). Virtual Presence, Virtual Absence: The Cheshire Cat Phenomenon on the Web. Inkshed (Newsletter of the Canadian Association for the Study of Language and Learning), 18.3, 14-15.

Krause, Tim. (March 1997). Preparing an Online Resume. Business Communication Quarterly, 60.1, 159-161.

Popken, Randall. (1999). The Pedagogical Dissemination of a Genre: The Resume in American Business Discourse Textbooks, 1914-1939.� JAC, 19.1, 91-116.

Schryer, C. F. (1993 April). Records as Genre. Written Communication, 10.2, 200-234.

Yates, Joanne and Wanda J. Orlikowski. (1992 April). Genres of organizational communication: A structurational approach to studying communication and media. Academy of Management Review, 17.2, 299-326.