Image via CrunchBase
In an increasingly global job market, making your CV standing out from the pile and catch the attention of a recruiter has become a strenuous task.
Fear nothing though, social media can help you.
After the classic paper CV, plenty of details about your life story and perhaps even a photo, the CV in “European format” came along. Long, too detailed, too standard. Boring. This was an attempt at a standardisation of the CV that didn’t really work. Thank God.
In today’s job hunt, the one thing that nobody wants is to be put in the same box as some body else. Or at least not as everybody else (it wouldn’t be good to be on your own either).
Thankfully, the web offers lots of opportunity to make your professional profile unique and “unforgettable” through a dashing presentation.
The Facebook CV
In June, Mashable published a nice article on “ingenious CV” and the story of Claudio Nader, 28 years old Italian, was told. He lived in the UK for a bit and wanted to go back to Italy to find a job. Seen the difficulties he had to face, he came up with a singular way to get noted in the communication world.
According to Mr Nader, the best venue to do this, is Facebook, the most clicked social network in the world. He set up an eye catching CV and made it accessible through his privacy settings. His Facebook CV has made to the 12 most beautiful CV in the world, after having created a lot of buzz around his initiative which demonstrated he has pretty good media planning skills. His adventure was reported on many papers and on his blog, and it led him to his current role as Social Media Assistant based in his hometown, Bologna (Italy).
This example, is only one of many cases where success is achieved through social connections on the web. This is the basic essence of social recruiting, a new emerging recruitment “tactic”, which leverages social media connections for finding talent and recruiting it.
Hiring managers are keen on using social recruiting as a survey indicated that online recruiting has grown by 15% compared to 2010.
It is why, a candidate should be careful about what’s said about him on the web. Web reputation is becoming pivotal for a successful job hunt campaign.
A survey conducted by Adecco, 123People and Digital Reputation found that in July 2010, 36% of recruiters used to perform candidates background check through social networks and the web in general.
Everyone can “Google you” at any time. So whatever is on the web, is accessible to the public, thus recruiters as well.
Careerbuilder, recommends that job seekers:
- Remove pictures, content and links that can send the wrong message to potential employers.
- Update social networking profiles regularly to highlight latest accomplishments.
- Consider blocking comments to avoid questionable posts; avoid joining groups whose names could turn off potential employers.
- Consider setting profile to private so only designated friends can view it.
It is therefore essential that you choose your online friends carefully and you exercise some “content curation” as well, as they will translate into your online image, which is projected out in the world.
The infographic CV
Apart from social media and social recruiting, there are other rising and notable trends in the job seeking scene.
Everyone is looking for a new way to show creativity and entrepreneurship and other skills in a cool and to the point way. I guess that’s how and why infographics CV are becoming more and more popular, especially among the design community.
The idea of an infographic CV was first born in the US, thanks to Chris Spurlock, a journalism student who ended being hired by the Huff Post, after his infographic CV was published on the newspaper and went viral. The best thing about an infographic CV is that it’s clear and concise and colourful! For more examples of infographic CV check this site.
Using an infographic CV will surely make you stand out from the crowd, but it’s not as easy as writing a normal CV. If you’re not a graphic designer you could have some hard time learning dital imaging programs (eg Photoshop) and skills you need in order to make one. You could try to sign up for services that offer to make an infographic for you like Vizualize me or CVgram which are by closed invitation only.
If you can’t get an invite for the beta, you could use more accessible and free apps like Wordle or Tagxedo, which create a text cloud. If you want to explore further, for graphics or diagrams you could try Gliffy, which offers free access as well.
Video CV
This is not all. Video is increasingly used by companies that want to go the extra mile to attract the best talent around. Companies in the technolgy sector are competing for the best people and having a video that can show your company values and culture can make the difference. Check out this career and jobs site for the game industry. It’s a good example of what business can do to win the best people.
For the job seeker, building a video cv shows that you’re proactive, creative, that you can think outside the box. All qualities that any company would gladly pay for. YouTube is the primary host of video CVs and I would suggest to have a look at this, if you haven’t already. This is an extreme example as it’s a website, including a video CV and more. This guy, Matthew Epstein, wants to work for Google and it seems he will go any lenght to get a job with the company
LinkedIn CV
Let’s not forget the basics here. Nothing fancy, but something essential. Make sure to build up your professional profile on LinkedIn and you might not know, the profile can even be exported into a CV with the choice of some pretty nifty layouts.
Be yourself
No matter what communication channel you chose for your CV, don’t forget to be honest and more than everything, be yourself. That’s always the best bet.
Any thoughts, drop them here!
(article originally published on Social recruiting and HR blog)
Related articles:
