The conventional wisdom about online resumes is that they age -- not like good wine, but like fish. Anything that's more than 48 hours old is likely to be unsavory and downright undesirable.

As a consequence, most commercial recruitment web sites purge 90-day old resumes. Job seekers can resubmit their credentials, but the bias is clear: Old resumes can turn an otherwise respectable place into what one pundit has called a "recruiting ghetto."

Is this perspective correct? Consider that the older a resume becomes, the more likely it is to represent a high-caliber prospective candidate. Since most people do find a new job, their aged resumes describe successful job seekers. Yes, they are currently employed but, having been in their position for awhile they also may be willing to look at something better. That's the classic definition of a passive job seeker, the prime candidate for any recruiter.

Indeed, the older a resume grows, the more likely the job hunter will be interested in another position. Why? Because as time passes, the probability goes up that they will have:

• completed the work that attracted them to their current position in the first place;
• had a change in supervisor and no longer work for the manager who hired them;
• grown intellectually and now seeks new challenges and opportunities for development; or
• become disenchanted with their present employer, lifestyle or location.

Whatever the situation, they are ready to listen to your employment opportunity.

There are problems with elderly resumes, of course. First, they're out-of-date and they may not include the most recent employment credentials. It's entirely possible that people who were not qualified for your opening before taking their current positions could now be very competitive, and you'd never know it. Second, archaic resumes may not have correct contact information for the candidates. After all, people often move to take another position, and new addresses will not be reflected on old resumes.

As a consequence, I have devised WEDDLE's First Law of Resume Aging:

Resumes are static documents, so they age like fish. The people that resumes describe are dynamic individuals, so they age like good wine. Good recruiters can smell the difference.

In short, use old resumes as stock. Admittedly, they'll require a little more preparation, but they can bring astonishing results. For example, if a resume is two or more years old and describes a person who is one step short of being qualified for your position (e.g., they lack the requisite years of experience or the necessary background in a specific role), assume they have now plugged the gap and contact them. If the contact information on the resume is out of date, use the various directories on the Internet to track them down. These free resources can help you find addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and even home pages.

Why bother? Because aged resumes can add an extraordinary flavor to your candidate search. Since most recruiters don't use them, you'll have these oldie-but-goodies all to yourself. Said another way, you'll face a lot less competition in selling your opportunity to candidates with older resumes than you will selling it to candidates posting fresh ones. And this makes for a potentially delectable outcome.

You can also avoid a lot of the preparatory effort required with older resumes by building your own database of candidates. Add every person who applies for a position in your organization to the database, even if they're not qualified. Remember, people age like good wine; it's their resumes that get moldy. Then, stay in touch with everyone in your database on a regular basis. This effort will help you keep track of the candidates and their contact information up-to-date.

Even more important, this communication enables you to build relationships with the individuals whose resumes you are storing. Relationships have always been the foundation of successful recruiting, and they remain so in the Internet age. Thanks to e-mail and computer databases, these relationships can now be maintained more efficiently and with greater numbers of people than was ever possible in the days of Rolodexes and telephone calls.

Moreover, relationships are the fountain of youth for old resumes and a barrier to the competition. Staying in touch with candidates is the most effective way of refreshing their record, and the information you acquire is not known to your competitors. In short, the more substantial your relationship with candidates, the more up-to-date and refined your knowledge of their credentials.

So here's the corollary to WEDDLE's First Law of Resume Aging:

Resumes are only static documents, if they are allowed to age like fish -- good recruiters never let that happen.

-- Mr. Weddle is an author and commentator, a print newsletter about successful on-line recruiting.