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Thursday, January 16, 2014

Could LinkedIn spell the demise of the CV?

LinkedIn is a recruitment consultant’s dream tool. With millions of candidates at their fingertips, a powerful search function, and other strong networking functionalities, headhunting is now at its most efficient. Posing as a platform to talk about your professional activities, your LinkedIn profile is a CV and more. In this blog, we’ll have a look at the benefits of LinkedIn, raising the question whether traditional CVs are necessary in the modern job market.

Better Exposure


In the past, if you needed work, it was customary to send your CV via snail mail to your target employers, and then keep your fingers crossed for a reply. The trouble with this very dated approach is that you limit the sets of eyes that see your CV. Hosting a CV online gives you better exposure to more employers – people who are more likely to share the link to your profile than resend a CV onto someone that may be interesting in employing you.

Easier to Update


Making even the smallest edits to your printed CV can lead to huge alterations to its layout. LinkedIn have devised an extremely easier interface in which you are able to use to update your profile with a few clicks, instead of tiresomely re-drafting and re-printing your CV.

CV and Cover Letter all in one


With LinkedIn you have the ability to write a 2000 word description about yourself, which, if written correctly and concisely, is more than enough space to write a cover letter style description of yourself.

Recruiters come to you


Thousands of recruitment consultants use LinkedIn every day to headhunt for positions that they have been given the responsibility to fill. In a dramatic role reversal, you could have recruiters and employers coming to you, instead of you approaching them about work.

Of course, there are downsides to using LinkedIn. Sending a CV to an employer via snail mail is a great way to show your own competence in writing and communicating. Using LinkedIn as your CV also loses the personal touch – being able to tailor each CV to suit each employer that you would intend to contact – optimising your chances of being employed.

Ultimately, at Explore we recommend a healthy mixture of keeping your LinkedIn profile up-to-date, as well as regularly maintaining a CV in a word doc which is ready to print as required.

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