Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) are gaining popularity on the Ethereum Blockchain and Solana Blockchain. There are more KOLs’ discussions on Blockchain's general applications in HR. So we'll figure out how to include NFT-based resumes into the workforce.
What Are NFTs?
NFTs are digital assets that can be found in a variety of industries. They are unique, and their use cases are growing rapidly. Any type of media can be turned into an NFT, including art, trading cards, memes, gifs, video clips, audio clips, tweets, and this article. Once an asset has been tokenized, it can be bought, sold, and traded using cryptocurrency.
Content serves as the foundation of everything. This could be a picture, a sketch, a video clip, or anything else. It could be something original, like a self-created drawing or grafitti, or it could be something that already exists. That work of material is "minted" on the blockchain after creation, or converted into an NFT. A blockchain, which in this case stores a record of NFT ownership and transaction history, is a public ledger that is shared by a large number of computers. The Ethereum blockchain includes the majority of NFTs with the standard of ERC-721.
Your NFT is accessed using a wallet (Metamask, Phantom, etc.) once it is on the blockchain. This digital wallet is used to access an account or address by decrypting a seed phrase. When you buy an NFT, your account or address is listed as the owner of that NFT within the NFT contract. NFTs can be bought and sold in a marketplace such as Opensea or Magic Eden.
NFTs offer a lot of promising future use cases; Shivak created a thread to cover this topic, which you can find informative here.
Of all these use cases, we will primarily focus on how NFTs can be used to create a digital resume in this article.
How Can NFTs Be Used In The Workforce?
One of the key roles of the HR department is recruitment and talent acquisition. Finding young and talented people pays off, but going through mountains of resumes doesn't.
However, with Web3, HR can use blockchain-based NFT technology to simplify and speed up the recruitment process. NFT resumes are still new, but people are developing them quickly. Soon we will be able to use them effectively.
In fact, NFTs could be used in HR in a few different ways. For example, NFTs could be used to store employee records or to represent digital badges that show an employee's skills and accomplishments. In addition, NFT can be used as a way to verify complex skills such as university degrees, coding courses, etc. This unique and non-interchangeable asset will mean HR can immediately check the technical skills of candidates.
The transparency of digital ledgers is another advantage, as NFT qualifications would be immediately accessible to the public as data on the blockchain. Such transparency would save HR departments' time because background checks on educational credentials would not be necessary.
But how can all of this be achieved? Vitalik Buterin and his co-authors published a paper in May 2022 that created the terms “decentralized society” (DeSoc) and “SoulBound Token” (SBT). SoulBound Token (SBT) is a concept describing a type of token that is a public non-transferable NFT tied to one wallet as its “Soul”. NFTs are unique but transferable, while SBTs are NFTs, but non-transferable. Simply put, SoulBound Token represents the key to unlocking access to a group that needs members to prove their identity, credentials, memberships, certificates, affiliates, historical data, achievements, etc. This fits what an NFT resume seeks to solve.
With NFT resume, HR managers can obtain a list of approved candidates who all have the required skills. This means that managers would be able to go straight to the interviews, where they would review and analyze a candidate's soft skills.
There is already a lot of AI software that can help with recruiting people for jobs. While the current systems can help find candidates and schedule interviews, the process still needs to be managed and checked by a human.
The time HR departments could save with Web3 technology could then be spent improving onboarding for new employees. If a company has good onboarding, it means that the company will give new employees all the training and support they need to do their job well.
How Does NFT Resume Work?
At the moment, the resume is simply a PDF, Word document, or an enhanced LinkedIn profile. However, NFT Resume on blockchain is currently rising from behind the curtain. This allows a candidate to get more control over their career, future, data, and resume.
NFT resumes are digital resumes that a candidate can share with employees. They incorporate a candidate’s whole professional history, talents, and achievements. They're simple to update and always up-to-date. If you earn an NFT for work done on Upwork or Fiverr, it can also be displayed on your NFT resume profile with the exact statistics about the workflow, time spent, skills, rate, etc.
An NFT resume is posted on a specific blockchain as soon as it is created. The on-chain NFT can be accessed by employers and has the complete history of modifications, with all relevant changes logged and highlighted, and each point confirmed and authenticated. This NFT resume is then posted on the NFT market. Job seekers are in control of their resumes and can set a price employers must pay to them in order to view it. By contacting each other directly, job seekers can avoid agency or broker fees.
Coinmarketcap published an article on how to create an on-chain resume, which is exciting because we have lately seen organizations begin to discuss the idea.
A Deep Dive Into Building Your On-Chain Resume | CoinMarketCap
The Challenges Facing
People may encounter difficulties when constructing NFT Resume paradise. To achieve mass acceptance in the actual world, we must overcome the following obstacles:
Adaptation. It could take years for us to adapt, and breaking into the mainstream would be difficult. It's difficult because blockchain is a new technology, and in order to compete with Web2's present workforce, blockchain technology must be broadly used. But we all know that it will be impossible to complete in one or two years. This would most likely be a niche site for blockchain companies and those who want to work for them right now, and it would then gradually expand out until everyone realized how handy and convenient using blockchain is, and then NFT Resume would thrive!
The ability to have trust-less verified work histories. How would firms know whether the NFT resume is genuine? Again, we need time to fix this. When more large institutions, such as companies, colleges, banks, and even governments, completely accept blockchain as a purely innovative technology. They agree to use NFT as certificates, proof of skill sets, etc. So, validating via NFT will be much more authentic.
Because each resume is a unique NFT, any modifications to NFT resume will need to be minted as a new one. That would be costly if you often update the information. However, this isn't a big concern because you won't be doing it very often when you need time to finish a course or skill and get certified, right?
Jobs In The Future
Some people think that the growth of Web3 and NFT resume will lead to many new opportunities and excitement for companies. However, it is important to remember that some jobs may be at risk because of this change.
Some jobs are going to be replaced by computer programs that are more efficient and cost-effective. There will be fewer of these jobs available, but it is not yet known if this will mean that people in these roles will be laid off or if there just won't be as many new positions open in the future.
It is not surprising that the HR industry will be the most impacted given that NFT resume and blockchain technology can fully filter candidates to assist companies in finding the best fits, and candidates can now locate the best positions efficiently and faster than most humans. Blockchains and Web3 are, however, also generating a wide range of new jobs and possibilities.
Some businesses are creating new positions, particularly in the crypto and NFT sectors. Community managers and even chief vibes officers are examples of these positions.
The jobs entail managing a global company community, managing investor relations, and creating a healthy work environment. This shift indicates the increased importance of soft skills. Despite the fact that automation is rapidly increasing, surveys suggest that selecting candidates with high soft skills enhances company earnings.
It is obvious that recruiting for IT and blockchain positions will be a major priority in the future of HR. Nevertheless, individuals should not be concerned because there will still be plenty of room for soft-skill-focused positions within firms.
NFT resume is still in its infancy, but with the proliferation of many new technologies, only time will tell how influential and widespread it will be.