The CV had a good run. For decades, it served as the default container for professional identity—a neat, linear story of where you’ve been and what you’ve done. Titles, dates, bullet points, maybe a few quantified achievements if you were paying attention. It was simple, portable, and, for a long time, good enough. But somewhere along the way, it started to feel less like a reflection of reality and more like a carefully edited narrative.

Something has been off about professional references for a while now, even if most people haven’t quite said it out loud. You scroll through profiles, endorsements, recommendations—everything looks polished, consistent, almost frictionless. Too frictionless, maybe. The signal is there, but it’s buried under a layer of performative credibility that feels more like formatting than proof. LinkedIn didn’t break professional references, it standardized them to the point where differentiation became harder.