Résumé, Who Needs It?!

During the past five or so years, LinkedIn has become a force majeure in the recruitment and job-search space. Thousands of recruiters and hiring managers are now searching for candidates on LinkedIn and reaching out them to recruit. As a result many job seekers and even others not looking for a job have relegated the traditional résumé to the scrap pile.

This is a mistake!

Why? This is primarily because a LinkedIn Profile and résumé convey a candidate’s value proposition in very different ways. Granted, that LinkedIn provides searchable database to quickly narrow one’s search and come up with potential candidates for a job. Also, the fact that they are visible and well presented on LinkedIn implicitly conveys their willingness to change jobs. So, the effort required to target a hirable candidate is much more efficient using this approach. However, this is not the whole story!

A well-crafted résumé can be a good foundation for creating a strong LinkedIn Profile. A recruiter or hiring manager sees a typical searched Profile for about 8 seconds. This requires that the presentation of your message be done to allow this time to convey your value to the reader (recruiter or hiring manager) to get that call. A well-designed résumé can complement this presentation, once you get selected to move forward. When you are in front of an interviewer a strongly showcased résumé can be a powerful tool for the interviewer to see and use to explore further your candidacy, much more effectively than your LinkedIn Profile.

So, here are my reasons for not abandoning your résumé in favor of a LinkedIn Profile:

1. Most professionals create their résumé only when they need to look for a job. This is a mistake. A résumé can be used to manage your career by carefully selecting the assignments and pre-writing your accomplishments to achieve what you set out to achieve. It can serve as a roadmap to your career arc and future plans.
2. For making a job or career change a forward-looking résumé is critical. Historical chronology cannot provide that leap of faith for a reader to take risk on a candidate because it does not showcase what that candidate can do in a new direction. An Inductive résumé (my own creation and IP) can do this much more effectively.
3. A well-designed résumé allows for very efficient formatting and layout (including fonts, colors, highlights, and tables) that LinkedIn does not. So, when you take your résumé to your job interview it is much more efficient to conduct an interview using this document than a printed version of your LI Profile.
4. LinkedIn Profile allows for only one major avatar of your career. So, if you want to showcase yourself as a software engineer, program manager, and a customer-support person it is difficult to have each one of those focused value propositions in your LinkedIn Profile without diluting your brand. A résumé can be optimized for each targeted job easily.
5. You can showcase a more personal statement in a résumé, which is difficult on a LinkedIn Profile.
6. Since each update of a Profile can trigger its notification to others in your network, doing a discreet job search is much more difficult using LinkedIn.

These are just some of the reasons for not abandoning your résumé in preference to a LinkedIn Profile. I am sure that there are also other reasons for doing so or otherwise. So, use your judgment in keeping yourself marketable.

Good luck!