Professional CV Or LinkedIn Profile?

In the modern job search, you can not afford to have a poor Professional CV. It communicates your capability to do the job you applied for.

But in a modern job search, we know that as well as responses to job adverts and pro-active job applications (push marketing), there is also the need to create a pull marketing effect. With head hunters and recruiters now using social media to find the hidden passive candidates that all employers seek, is your social media profile as important as your Professional CV?

Job Application

In the days before the internet, there were two types of jobs: blue collar, and white collar. Blue collar workers undertook industrial and physical jobs, and if they fancied a change of working environment, the options for finding a job were pretty simple: the local newspaper. White collar workers also had the local newspaper, as well as national newspapers and the magic that is networking. As either form of worker progressed along the job application process, the similar HR process kicked in, including background checks.

Modern Job Search

Today with the internet, all that has changed. Firstly, the number of jobs advertised in newspapers has greatly decreased, while the number of job boards seem to multiply daily. The result appears to be more jobs available to the job seeker. Secondly, the job application process has changed, with more employers now using electronic application and vetting over the good old phone and cover letter.

But all that is doing is using the new tools in the same old ways, because employers are using them to improve efficiency and reduce costs of their process. What about new ways of using the new tools?

Firstly, finding jobs via networking is open to all job seekers thanks to social media. Need to know more about company X? Social media sites like Facebook provide you with a telephone directory of contacts all willing to talk about their employer. There is no excuse these days for going into an employer whose internal style you won’t like, let alone not being able to answer the job interview question “what do you know about us?”

But secondly, the recruitment industry is using new techniques to find the people and potential employees that they need. When we are faced with a skills shortage due to reducing birth rates and increasing restrictions on immigration, the use of techniques such as Boolean search means that your social media profile is as important as your Professional CV to getting your next job.

LinkedIn profile

Of particular interest should be your LinkedIn profile, which is usually one of the top three results when searching your name on Google, often above your own personal blog. But above what a blog will give, a developed LinkedIn profile can show your full career history (far more extensive than your Professional CV), and supporting recommendations from work colleagues and bosses that what you say you do, you actually deliver (pre-application reference checks). If you happen to apply via to a job advert, then 80% of employers will now Google your name and check your background that way, before purchasing a full traditional background check after the telephone interview.

Resultantly, while your Professional CV may get you in the front door, if your social media results profile and LinkedIn profile are not as well presented and up to date, then your job application will be rejected.

So, before starting your next job search let alone your first job application, always think Professional CV and LinkedIn profile.

Good Luck!

Professional CV Or LinkedIn Profile?