In this day of fast-food, social media attention deficit disorder-based communications, I must raise my hand and object. Not every business professional prefers these drive-through communications. Instead, they prefer a resume entrée with which they can linger and digest.
In a recent blog post, “Resumes Are Not Dead!” by Glen Cathey in SourceCon News, Cathey refers to “the limitations inherent with using Twitter, blogs, Internet articles, LinkedIn profiles and similar sources for talent identification” and refers to them as “shallow” sources of candidate information. He goes on to explain what he means by shallow, including referencing the limited detail available in such venues.
It is my firm belief (through my day-to-day career communications service to job seekers and interactions with hiring decision makers) that hiring leaders, board members, executives, supervisors and front-line managers are not conclusively ravaging the social media buffet to fulfill candidate recruitment initiatives.
Why Meaty Is In and Emaciated Is Out
A meaty and substantive career story, a well-forged tale that wraps around the hiring leader’s pain points and emerging needs, performs best.
LinkedIn profiles, replete with slide shows, blog posts, testimonials, snappy photos and groups joined, 140-character Twitter quips, Facebook wall conversations and “Like” affirmations do not a fulfilling, streamlined career enrichment conversation make.
Communicating a deeper, more introspective career message is imperative. Aspire to delve into rich tales of business solutions that untangled and resolved current issues and built fortresses for sustainable revenues and profits. In this way, a candidate connects with smart and thoughtful hiring decision makers who are in the throes of wrangling complex problems and future company goals.
Combining proof of problem-solving and business innovation that catapulted growth, with stories that layer in the “how,” the “why” and the critical “hurdle-leaping, people-influencing and process-improving” capabilities, the candidate creates texture and meaning that lures the reader.
Why Social Media Enhances (Not Substitutes for) a Resume
Often, with social media sound bites and the current trend for pared-down, ADD-focused resumes and other career positioning messaging, the outcome is a staccato, emaciated document that may initially influence a hunger but then fail to satisfy.
I wholeheartedly agree that forging social media relationships will attract your target audience to your value proposition—including visits to your blog musings, your LinkedIn profile and perhaps even your Facebook wall. As such, I am a power Twitter user, maintain a current LinkedIn profile and am fairly active on Facebook.
Yet, those engagements are called “social” for a reason. You must extend the message beyond the “social media relationship” to include a pragmatic, targeted, content-rich message that blends achievements with situations, that connects results with nuanced paths, decisions at forked-roads and encounters with flared personalities to a job well executed. You must, therefore, blend your online marketing prowess with a deeper-dive and focused career story that proves you are a leading contender for the target audience and jobs you seek.
The resume is the hub where all these engaging social profiles and interactions converge; or better yet, with a well-thought-out resume at the center, the social media spokes naturally emanate, supporting and extending your unique value proposition to a broader audience of influencers.
