I've always found resumes to be quite useful in figuring out who to bring in for an interview - BUT, most of the people I've been involved in hiring have had between 5 and 15 years of experience, usually at at least 2 or more real companies. I can well believe that if you're only interested in people right out of school, then it's harder to figure out candidates from their resumes.
I am a little puzzled, though, about why others seem to find resumes so opaque. It seems like resume-reading is a lost art. A resume is usually a document that someone has spent a lot of effort on to make themselves look good. If you learn to read them, that can tell you a lot about the author. (Note: searching for buzzwords is not "reading.") A resume should not be regarded as simply a collection of facts - of course you'll be misled if you do that; a resume should be regarded as a document of self-expression. After a while, you can see useful patterns in what people put in resumes - a least for more-experienced applicants. Almost every resume suggests a bunch of next questions, which can be asked in a phone screen or interview to get a pretty good idea of what a person is about.
It's worth recalling that absolutely all software engineers at all software companies in the world from the first ones around 1955 up to 2002 were hired without benefit of LinkedIn, StackOverflow, Github. Almost all of these engineers submitted resumes, which were reviewed prior to offering interviews. Yes, there were hiring mistakes in the old days, but I don't see a huge number of people taking about how the hiring process now is so much easier, smoother and more foolproof than it used to be.
I am a little puzzled, though, about why others seem to find resumes so opaque. It seems like resume-reading is a lost art. A resume is usually a document that someone has spent a lot of effort on to make themselves look good. If you learn to read them, that can tell you a lot about the author. (Note: searching for buzzwords is not "reading.") A resume should not be regarded as simply a collection of facts - of course you'll be misled if you do that; a resume should be regarded as a document of self-expression. After a while, you can see useful patterns in what people put in resumes - a least for more-experienced applicants. Almost every resume suggests a bunch of next questions, which can be asked in a phone screen or interview to get a pretty good idea of what a person is about.
It's worth recalling that absolutely all software engineers at all software companies in the world from the first ones around 1955 up to 2002 were hired without benefit of LinkedIn, StackOverflow, Github. Almost all of these engineers submitted resumes, which were reviewed prior to offering interviews. Yes, there were hiring mistakes in the old days, but I don't see a huge number of people taking about how the hiring process now is so much easier, smoother and more foolproof than it used to be.