We are all reading the hype with social media, so what are some fundamental uses or changes in our business in amongst all that ‘noise’? When it comes to new media and communications, it’s a jungle out there…and for the past 12 months I’ve said “Right…we’ve got to keep up!” So here’s my take about one area.
The CV was and still is a critical personal branding document – but various recent client comments… especially when clients comment about the look, content and quality of candidate CVs… got me thinking. In fact sometimes just the look of a CV simply stops a client in their tracks…they are turned off…cold… and the candidate doesn’t stand a chance.
As a result I feel social media networks such as LinkedIn are stepping in to level the playing field and make it a lot more upfront and honest for all concerned – is it now time to go all Sci-fi-IT and replace CVs with Linked-in profiles?
LinkedIn is already the B2B place where social networking meets the CV. It’s where:
- First up, being in the public domain, the information on LinkedIn is far more reliable than the embellishments we have all seen over the years on CVs!
- Your personal brand, talents and experience can be reflected well past the old fashioned traditional paper based document
- It’s instantly up-dateable
- Background details are highlighted and linked
- Your commitment to your career can be seen through your connectedness
- Other channels can feature – like Twitter, Blogs, websites
- Length becomes unimportant
- Information is formatted and presented in a standardised and clear way. This reduces the distractions such as a reader not liking the format or font
- Professional relationships can be initiated and fostered
- You can stand out from the crowd and the clutter by simply stating the facts
- Your knowledge in an industry is evident by using Blogs and having a platform
- Paper and trees are saved!
- Time is saved
- Finally, YOU have control over who sees your profile – reducing the cheeky scattergun spamming that some recruiters enter into with candidate CVs [as evidenced just last week with an HR Manager client who received 30 random CVs from another recruitment company - and we all know why this is damn poor form!]
It makes sense does it not? Mind you – one has to take a deep breath and ask… so what does the role of the recruiter become?
And having said this… a conversation at a dinner party recently was interesting from another angle. When asking why people don’t want to use LinkedIn and would rather keep submitting their CV, some strongly argued that they:
- Wouldn’t want to be forced to use a social networking site to apply for a role
- They wouldn’t create a LinkedIn profile because they don’t want to make their career history public
It did appear that this view point seemed more prevalent within executive level candidates and ‘mature’ people…
I’d welcome you comments on this!
As a UK based recruiter, where the group I started also provides CV services, I’d say that the balance is changing, but not as much or as quickly as many think.
From the candidate side, Social Media can achieve three things if used correctly. Firstly, it can provide more job opportunity, because if you are on Google let alone LinkedIn or Doostang, then techniques such as boolean search and even the good old pair of eyes work (pull marketing). Executives understand that opportunity comes in many different forms and from many different directions, and hence accept this; those who don’t are and want to wholly control their lives are quite happy in middle management or on the shop floor. Secondly it provides you with the possibility to build a networking bridge to your targeted next ideal employer (assisted push marketing). Why hold a desire and not full fill it when you have the choice, opportunity and now the tools to fully achieve it? Thirdly, it allows an employer to check you out and confirm your CV claims as a job applicant (background check). 80% of employers now search job applicants name on Google before the telephone interview, and sometimes in place of a formal background check, so job applicants social media profile is becoming more essential.
For the employer, social media is a better, greater coverage, more trusted, direct and cheaper form of jobs board. Who needs CV databases at all or recruiters for most vacancies when you have social media, and those who embrace it will not face the global skills shortage that will face others.
For recruiters, its the sign to niche and up-market. Using it now provides more possible candidates for any brief in a cheaper and quicker time scale. There are already online tools which can be operated by anyone who can type which can achieve that, and soon the employers will have them in even easier to use formats. The days of the high street recruiter providing armies of secretaries, office admin and fast food operatives are already shown to be over by the sharply falling margins. But recruiters will survive because recruitment is still a human scale service. Companies that are unattractive will still need new talent to deploy their business plans, while some skills will still be over wanted and under supplied in talent, and employers won’t know where to find those people or how to attract them. We also have to look at the shift in scale of where business is done, with more start-ups and smaller more flexible corporates: recruiters will need to take on more HR, project management risk and business planning activity to stay mainstream.
Markets change, technologies develop, and trends come and go. But social media is here to stay, and as both employees, job applicants, employers and recruiters, we just have to accept the change and adapt to it.