Has LinkedIn Superseded 'the CV'?

So do I need a CV when LinkedIn is 'where it's at' thesedays?

According to a survey by Jobvite, 93% of recruiters use LinkedIn to screen candidates. This isn't surprising. Before LinkedIn, recruiters had to keep manual lists and client books to keep track of where candidates were.

Thesedays, they simply have to run a 'search' in LinkedIn for the keywords they are looking for (read my post on LinkedIn keywords here). LinkedIn has made their lives considerably easier.

In Human Resource Executive Online ('Goodbye Resume? Not So Fast, Experts Say") a number of recruiters are quoted on the topic:

Jennifer Hoffman, a principal in Winter, Wyman's Human Resources Search, says this: "A Résumé (Editor's note: they use that term in the US) conveys several layers of information about an individual's background as well as being equally important for a hiring manager in learning about an individual's experience and comparing candidates side by side."

Revi Goldwasser, managing partner of Wall Street Personnel (financial recruitment) says, "For the actual component of 'hiring,' you still need a resume 100 percent of the time. When we submit a resume to a client we need a resume - when the job seeker goes to an interview, we need a resume."


Recruiters in Australia agree:

In January 2012, Human Capital Magazine Online ("The Résumé is not dead; It's just evolving") quoted a number of senior recruitment executives:

Guy Cary, managing director, First Advantage – Australia & New Zealand, said the resume is still important because it allows a candidate to present themselves to an employer the way they want to.

“While the employer may have seen a candidate’s profile on LinkedIn, it may be somewhat generic and not appropriately targeted to the company or job in question,” he said. “A strong resume that represents what a candidate brings to a particular organisation or role is still critically important.”


Summary:

The fact of the matter is, you need both an online and 'offline' presence - which basically means you need a LinkedIn profile as well as a paper version of your profile - in other words, a CV.

The question isn't so much whether you need one or the other.

The question to ask should be: are BOTH your online and offline profiles (LinkedIn and CV) demonstrating your expertise, knowledge and credibility... that's all that matters in the end.

- Rebecca

Read other related posts Rebecca has written:

3 Questions To Help Your CV Stand Out from The Competition
The Number 1 Mistake Women Make On Their CVs
What's The Difference Between a CV and Resume?
The 5 Types of Keyword To Use in Your LinkedIn Profile
The 5 Common Mistakes Women Make On Their CVs (with this download, you can receive our fortnightly ezine 'Presence' too)

The 5 Types of Keyword To Use in Your LinkedIn Profile

What is a 'keyword'?

Essentially, ‘keywords’ are the words that recruiters type in when they run a search on LinkedIn.


When you're considering which keywords to add to your profile, it helps to get into the mind of a recruiter. What words is he or she likely to be looking for? What kinds of candidate would be connected to those keywords?

A simple way to work this out is to ask yourself,

‘What words have the greatest relevance within my industry?’

For example:


1. Are there particular experiences that a recruiter would need to see in your profile?

e.g. pitch work; leading new business projects


2. Might certain skill sets be important?

e.g. Advanced Xcel


3. Or specific knowledge perhaps?

e.g. risk analysis


4. Maybe she's looking for someone with particular process or product knowledge?

e.g. Software; processes; equipment


5. Companies?

e.g. the fact that you have worked for a particular company already could be very relevant to a recruiter looking for someone with your experience


Scatter these keywords throughout your LinkedIn profile and CV.

Don't over-do it and repetition is fine.

- Rebecca


Read other related posts by Rebecca:

The Number 1 Mistake Women Make on Their CVs

3 Questions To Help Your CV Stand Out From the Competition

The 5 Common Mistakes Women Make On Their CVs (with this download, you can receive our fortnightly ezine 'Presence' too)

3 Questions To Help Your CV Stand Out From the Competition

Your CV is a marketing tool. Plain and simple.

Marketing is about selling benefits - so what are the benefits of hiring you?

Too many people shy away from this question, but in many ways it is the ONLY question you need to ask and answer.

Take a bottle of water.

How would I benefit if I were to drink this specific bottle of water?

Benefit 1: Well, for starters, it's smooth. And I prefer smooth, over sparkling, mineral water.
Benefit 2: It's Evian. It has that gorgeous pure taste that I love.
Benefit 3: It's cold. It's come straight out of the fridge. Tick.


There we have it. Three clear benefits. I'm sold.
So what about you? What's on your package? What are you offering that's different or special? What would make a recruiter choose you over the stream of competitors out there?

Here are some questions to help:

1.What special knowledge or expertise do you have?

2. What experiences have you had that set you apart from your competition? These could be personal or professional experiences that enrich the breadth of your offering.

3. How can you make a difference / add value?

Answer these questions and your CV will start to sell benefits, benefits, benefits.

I'd love to hear some examples of benefits you have delivered (or are continuing to deliver) in your workplace!

- Rebecca

Read other posts from Rebecca:

The Number 1 Mistake Women Make On Their CVs

Read all 5 Mistakes Women Make On Their CVs (and you'll also receive a FREE subscription to our fortnightly ezine 'Presence')

The Number 1 Mistake Women Make on Their CVs

In my time as an Executive and Career Coach I have reviewed umpteen CVs – from men and women alike. I’ve noticed that women tend to commit the same errors time and time again.


The most problematic of these, in my view, is focusing too heavily on the 'Responsibilities' they have had throughout their careers.

I think this stems from the fact that women, in the main, want to do 'a good job' or rather, they want to be seen to be, or thought of as, doing 'a good job'.

I fell foul of this when I used to work for major international organisations – my driver was doing my job to the best of my ability, which meant diligently dotting the ‘Is’ and crossing the ‘Ts’ every single day.

Taking your responsibilities very seriously is important (dotting Is and crossing Ts can be tough going) but unfortunately, when it comes to your CV, those responsibilities are meaningless by themselves.

What recruiters, and potential employers, want to understand is how those day-to-day responsibilities delivered results.

Doing your job is not enough.

They want to know what happened as a result of you doing your job.

Action: Review your CV. Is it crammed with responsibilities? Or is it packed to the rafters with accomplishment, after accomplishment, after accomplishment?

- Rebecca


Read other related posts written by Rebecca:

Read all 5 of the Most Common Mistakes Women Make On Their CVs (you can also receive a FREE subscription to Rebecca's fortightly ezine 'Presence')
Why Your Experience To Date is Just Not Enough
3 Questions To Help Your CV Stand Out From the Competition
The 5 Keyword Types To Use in your LinkedIn Profile

SMH: Women Struggling With a Need to Please

I'd love to share Cosima Marrimer's article in this weekend's Sydney Morning Herald 'Sunday Life' magazine.

If you'd like to download the link to the article click here. Otherwise, read on!

JUGGLING careers, family and social lives, women feel stretched in all directions but are unable to say no, a Sunday Life magazine survey reveals.

More than 1500 women responded to the What Women Want online survey, discussing their bodies, relationships, careers, their worries and hopes for the future. While most readers report being fairly content with their busy lives, the survey revealed that managing competing demands remains an ongoing challenge.

When asked what personal quality they would most like to nurture, one-fifth said they wanted to be more assertive and confident. A further fifth said they would like to slow down and take the time to appreciate what they have in their lives.
''I am always doing things for others and rushing around like a mad person,'' said Kylee, 42. ''I would like to be able to slow down and smell the roses but life is too busy and [there is] always something to do or someone to see or help.''

Advertisement Leanne, 47, said: ''I would like to nurture the ability to say 'no' without guilt.''

Sabah, 21, felt similarly: ''I always say yes to people. I need to think about myself for a change.''

A quarter of readers said achieving work-life balance was their biggest challenge, compared with 15 per cent who nominated ageing gracefully, 13 per cent who said maintaining relationships and 10 per cent who cited managing a household and/or finances.

Despite the stresses in their lives, readers are more concerned about the sisterhood as a whole. A total of 60 per cent identified violence against women as the female issue that most urgently needs to be addressed, ahead of more support for at-home carers and closing the gender pay gap.

And while Australian women are paid, on average, 20 per cent less than their male peers, two-thirds of readers feel their work doesn't discriminate against them because they are female. Nearly half of working mothers said their careers had progressed since returning to work. Although money ranks third as a motivation for going to work, 81 per cent said they would choose a pay rise over more flexibility in their jobs.

Most women said they were happiest spending time with their partner, children or friends. They report healthy sex lives, 40 per cent having sex at least once a week. But, given a choice between sex, chocolate, a good book or sleep, more women opted for sleep than anything else.

Body image remains a concern for most readers, 70 per cent classifying themselves as overweight. Seven in 10 have been on a diet but less than half felt it helped them lose weight.

The survey revealed frustration with the fashion industry; three-quarters of respondents said they had trouble finding clothes to fit their body shape and hundreds wrote detailed critiques of modern fashion. Yet not many readers have turned to intensive cosmetic surgery to improve their looks, just 11 per cent going under the knife.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/women-struggling-with-need-to-please-20121117-29iyh.html#ixzz2CdPP4OTd

The Top 4 Reasons Employees Quit

This post, written by Kazim Ladimeji of the Career Cafe, struck a chord with me.

So much so, I wanted to share it word for word with you. It's written with a recruiter in mind but the learnings are just as important for a candidate seeking out a new job.

Here's what Kazim had to say:

"A few years back, PwC published some interesting findings of 19,000 exit interviews within their organization, where one of the key questions that was asked of employees was the simple question, “What was their reason for leaving?” The four most common reasons for leaving their organization were, in order of rank:


1.Limited career/promotion opportunities

2.Supervisor lacked respect/support

3.Compensation

4.Job duties boring/no challenge.

These findings resonate well with a later and similarly expansive Gallup Poll, which took into account the views of employees from 44 organizations and 10,600 business units. Gallup found an almost identical top four reasons for employees voluntarily leaving. Between these two substantial surveys we have a fairly good grasp on why good employees leave voluntarily.

Of course, ordinarily staff retention is a key focus of the ‘at work’ HR Business partners and employee relations team. However, upon knowing these top reasons for employees leaving it becomes clear that there are real steps that recruiters can and should be taking to not only hire staff well, but to hire staff in a ‘sticky’ way so they stay for the long term. Thus, putting recruiters in a strong position to be able to say that they make a meaningful contribution not just to staff attraction, but staff retention. This also raises their profile within the organization they work in or serve.

Listed below are the top four reasons that employees leave and four corresponding actions that recruiters can take during the recruiting process to help counteract these issues.

1. Limited career/promotion opportunities. Recruiters should check that the candidate’s career development and advancement expectations are closely aligned with what the organization is able to offer. That is, can the business meet the career development needs of the candidate? If the answer is no, then this candidate may be a risky hiring prospect who may be likely to leave prematurely.

2. Supervisor lacked/respect support. Recruiters should develop job descriptions with detailed manager profiles so the employee can see their potential supervisor’s management style and team culture – and see if it will be a good fit. Ensure that the candidate’s preferred style of being managed matches up with the manager’s preferred style of management as a mismatch could lead to an early voluntary exit by the employee.

3. Compensation. Be concerned about candidates who are singularly focused on compensation. Why? Because, if, as a subsequent employee, they become dissatisfied with their pay, the fact that they don’t place much value in other areas of the brand offering like culture, training and career development opportunities, means these other perks will not serve as retention devices. This type of ‘money fixated applicant’ will be much more vulnerable to premature departure than a candidate who places value in many of areas of the brand offering.

4. Job duties boring/no challenge. Clearly, recruiters should be encouraging line managers to produce comprehensive job descriptions that accurately reflect the duties, responsibilities, scope of the role, flexibility, and key contacts in order to provide an all-round feel of the role. Also, make use of Realistic Job Previews (RJP) which is a process where you give the employee a view of both the positive and negative aspects of the job. Research shows that use of RJPs means the employee will be better able to cope with the stresses and strains of the job and be more satisfied.

I believe that the modern recruiter or talent acquisition professional can add greater value to the organizations that they serve or work for by placing an emphasis on hiring ‘sticky’ employees who are selected to not only be good, but to actually stay for the longer-term and enable the employer to fully realize the investment they made in the new recruit."

Thanks Kazim!

Personal Branding Quick Tip 6: Leverage Your Brand To Benefit Others

This, for me, is the cleverest part of our approach to Personal Branding.

I firmly believe that you develop a powerful personal brand for a much greater reason than just furthering your own personal agenda.

My approach to personal branding is very much about leverage: now that you understand the power and influence you have already, as well as the power you can generate in the future, how are you going to use that to best effect?

For some people, they may wish to use their credibility to positively impact their children, "What lessons have I learnt about myself that I can pass onto them?" See past tips if you're unsure.

For other people, it might be about how their influence could be used to further the objectives of their organisation, "How can I command greater respect in our industry, thereby furthering the reputation of my company?"

And for others it may be about how they could further a community cause. Think about how some celebrities use their brand power to raise awareness of charities close to their hearts.

When you truly take action to create outcomes far greater than those to fuel your own agenda, the positive repurcussions on your brand are then multiplied - it's a win/win situation!

- Rebecca