Hiring great people means finding great resumes, right? Nope. Resume-writing is a skill in its own right, not a measure of any specific skills relevant to your job.

Hiring, especially for startups, should focus on the specific skill set and competencies a prospective employee brings to the job.

Anyone can itemize a list of traits on a resume and code that resume to be picked up by job searchers.

Lying on a resume is equally easy. Skills don’t lie, and the practical tests that assess these skills don’t lie either.

Here are seven reasons why you need to ditch the resume as part of your hiring process.

1. They create bias

The structure of a resume creates an assortment of biases that can make more qualified workers look less qualified.

A manager who’s excelled at a single job for 20 years, a self-employed entrepreneur and a journalist who’s held a range of positions at the same paper will all only have one entry on their resume.

This makes them look less qualified than the serial job-leaper. Non-traditional job seekers also suffer from bias.

A parent who left the workforce for five years may be imminently qualified, but a resume gap makes them look like they spent years doing nothing.

People routinely take time out of the workforce to go back to school, to raise kids, to start a non-profit, but the linear nature of the resume biases recruiters against them.

Resumes are also imbued with racial and gender bias. Studies show, for example, that recruiters unconsciously pass over resumes with “ethnic” names.

They also view resumes with male names more favourably. This harms candidates and organizations, even when it’s completely unintentional.

2. They don’t reflect worker’s skills

Resumes are filled with buzzwords and lists of responsibilities, as many workers are terrible at writing their own resumes.

A highly qualified worker who isn’t great at writing a resume may look very similar to a low-level, low-skill worker’s resume who is great at looking impressive.

The resume format is uniform across most positions, so hiring managers may struggle to discern the resume of a skilled worker against the resume of a beginner. Hire for skills, not for what’s on a resume.

3. They focus on style rather than substance

Most resume advice out there focuses on properly formatting the resume, producing a crop of resumes that look identical.

Despite the professionalism in formatting, most resumes do little more than tell a recruiter that the applicant can Google “how to write an impressive resume.”

Is that really all you want? The resume format prioritizes style and tradition over substance and achievement. That’s precisely what you don’t want in a new employee.

4. They remove personality

The resume is a streamlined approach to presentation. Everyone knows that comic sans is unprofessional and that bright pink rarely has any place on a resume.

But what if you’re hiring a fashion writer or a graphic designer? Don’t you want to see their creativity?

If you only look at resumes, you’ll see a pile of boring documents that eliminate all personality from the hiring process.

But personality plays a huge role in the workplace. You want more than just a qualified applicant.

You also want someone who fits into your culture. When every resume conveys the same staid, safe approach, it’s impossible to assess if the candidate is a good fit.

5. They attract recruiters for all the wrong reasons

The resume is designed to be easily scanned. Most estimates suggest that a recruiter can decide whether a resume is worth a second look in a mere six seconds.

Can you really decide anything at all in six seconds? First impressions are inherently deceptive.

That quick scan may blind you to a highly qualified applicant whose resume is less well organised or less eye-catching.

Do you want to hire someone who’s good at making an appealing resume or good at their job?

6. They are full of lies

80% of resumes contain misleading information, and more than 50% contain outright lies. So if your ideal candidate is one who lies a lot, especially in writing, then embrace the resume.

Most employers frown on dishonesty. However the competitive nature of resumes, the fact that recruiters spend so little time on them, and the insecurity many applicants bring to the job search all conspire to create a climate of resume dishonesty.

It’s easy to say you’re great at something or take credit for someone else’s work. But faking skills is nearly impossible.

7. They create hurdles for otherwise qualified applicants

Resumes pose a needless hurdle for busy, qualified applicants. It’s actually the less qualified applicants who have the time to beautifully format their resume, hire a professional resume-writer, and blow you away with a powerful first impression.

Are those really the people you want to hire? You’ll never even know which qualified applicants your screening process excluded. It’s clearly time to ditch the resume in hiring.

This article first appeared in vervoe.com.

At Vervoe, our mission is to fundamentally transform the hiring process from mediocracy to meritocracy.