Regular PMP Blog readers will know that I’m not a particular fan of LinkedIn. It’s a tool for lazy and often unprofessional recruitment tool but increasingly it’s yet another platform for personal brand building and some of the ‘content’ that I see is so narcissistic and ego driven that I find myself logging out . I was struggling to see how some people have the time to run their businesses as it seems to be a full time job cultivating their online image - but then I started seeing CVs for people whose job it is to write the posts on behalf of the business owner - so that answered that one. But it is a necessary evil and by not engaging with it, I’d only shoot myself in the foot. Anyway, one of my particular peeves is the use of polls and recently I saw another recruiter had posted the question ‘is the CV dead?’ - yes or no. Lots of recruiters commented that of course it’s dead, we all just look at LinkedIn profiles. What?
As always, the context of my blog is always written with the marketing and creative agency sector in mind - I can’t comment on recruitment trends in other industries but I’m a big fan of the CV. A document which describes your career history ideally over 2 sides of A4 together with a concise summary of your skills and achievements is the tool that secures you an interview. In my experience, LinkedIn profiles are mostly very short and give quite a sketchy summary of a work history. I would very much feel that I was shortchanging a client if I said - here’s a few LinkedIn profiles to look at.
Yes some LinkedIn profiles are works of art but generally that’s a small group of recruiters, self-appointed industry spokespeople (pontificators mostly), freelancers, independent consultants and business owners. Most employees don’t spend much time on their profile and they don’t update it regularly either. There are also some individuals who don’t actually have a LinkedIn profile - imagine!
Taking the time to write a good CV means that you are taking your job hunt seriously. It gets you to objectively think about your successes and to tailor the achievements to a specific role. It’s personal and it shows an employer not just about your track record but also how you communicate and how you present yourself.
Don’t get me wrong though, the CV does not work in isolation. It potentially gets you through the door and then you will need to demonstrate your social skills, your emotional intelligence and that you have the soft skills to fit into that particular business and their culture. A badly put together CV however will be a deal breaker, particularly if the employer has a bug bear about poor spelling or grammar. So my bottom line for any job hunter is to have a well presented CV and to tailor it if required to specific roles.
Every employer is different. There are the young gun entrepreneurs who don’t care about exam results and formal qualifications and there are old school businesses who want to know what your A level results were. Equally, there is a job for everyone so the skill of the recruiter is in matching the right candidates to the right employers. The interview process has a bearing on the personality of the business owner - the entrepreneurial businesses will ask you what your friends would say about you whereas the more formal interviewers will want to know your approach to managing complex projects. Whilst perhaps the new age entrepreneurs may say CVs are outdated, I disagree - I think all employers need to see what potential employees have achieved previously in order to determine if they have the skills for the job.
Increasingly, big businesses are using AI and automated software tools to facilitate their hiring processes. I’m not a fan of this either. There are courses specifically to help construct your CV so that it will make the interview shortlist, these CVs inevitably end up being lists of keywords and make for very bland reading.
Of course, what LinkedIn are hoping is that eventually the world will use it as their sole recruitment tool. They run courses for individuals who do want to have a high profile and be seen as Thought Leaders in their sectors. But so far, typical employees are not bothered and they’ve got enough social platforms to keep up with already and thus it ends up being the ego fest that it has become.
Every so often, we see CVs in different formats and again, some employers might quite like that. Novel and innovative ideas to get noticed can work - it just depends on the context of the business that you are applying to and the position. For a while it looked like personal videos could take off but I can’t see it ever working for the masses. CVs are already ‘judged’ by potential hiring managers and there is a lot of unconscious bias that goes on - and there are different biases depending on the business and the person reviewing the CV. I think video CVs would take that bias to the next level and lead to a lot of discrimination. I’m not sure that everyone wants to perform in front of the camera to pitch themselves - often the best performers on camera are not the best performers in the actual job role. So we’re back at the original tried and tested CV.
The best recruiters build their reputation by having strong relationships with the clients and candidates. When I send a CV, I send a short precis with the CV that outlines why I particularly think this person would suit the business and the role. I’ve been doing this job for over 15 years and over that time I’ve built a lot of trust with both candidates and clients and that trust means that the client will be happy to meet the individual. I’ve done all the legwork so the client doesn’t have to. They know that if they receive a CV from me, it’s someone that they’ll probably want to hire. So I think the CV is here to stay as an integral part of the portfolio that showcases individuals but it shouldn’t be the sole tool used in recruitment.