By Doug Meigs, for CNN
The hottest way to present your
resume currently involves just 140 characters and a lot of hype. Twitter
resumes - or "twesumes" - have been touted as the best way for social
media-savvy types to snag a dream job. But before you post your own abbreviated
CV, it is worth considering its limitations and what tweeting your employment
history really says about you.
"I
cannot imagine someone explaining their breadth of experience in 140 characters,"
says Sai Pradhan, a headhunter and managing director for Trufflepig Search,
based in Hong Kong. "I know people are calling it an elevator pitch these
days, but my goodness, even that's a bit longer. At most it could be an
introduction with a link to your CV."
The
term twesume (a contraction of "Twitter" and
"resume") began gaining traction in 2011 after it appeared in an
article by Sean Weinberg on social media news site, Mashable. Weinberg
co-founded the website RezScore, which allows users to upload their resumes and
receive an algorithmic-based grading on it.
In
subsequent years, the 140-character CV has been hailed by some as ushering in a
brave new world of truncated, social media-reliant resumes.
It
was reported last year that U.S. venture capital firm Union Square Ventures and
a handful of American tech companies were to only accept links to jobseekers'
"web presence" -- from blogs to Twitter accounts -- instead of traditional
resumes.
Earlier
this year, the chief marketing officer of U.S. technology company Enterasys,
Vala Afshar, announced that he would only consider Twitter applications for a
senior social media strategist position with a six-figure salary. All candidates
were supposed to use the hashtag
#socialCV and possess more than 1,000 Twitter followers.
Afshar
says he heard from hundreds of applicants and selected 15 for in-person
interviews.
"The main point of this process is that the selection committee,
including me, never references their CV," he wrote to CNN in an email.
"The process was purely a digital research and conversation-oriented
recruitment process."
Although Pradhan is enthusiastic about the business potential for
companies using social media, she isn't convinced that Twitter will replace the
resume for job-seekers. For her an updated profile on LinkedIn is more useful.
However a tidy web presence is increasingly important. International
advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather is currently hiring a director-level
candidate for its social media team in Hong Kong.
Application instructions for a similar posting last year warned:
"Take a look at your Twitter / Weibo profile and if you find the words:
maven / guru / expert? No need to apply. We want people whose focus it is to
build our clients' profiles, not their own."
The implication is that while social media has made it easier for
direct access to companies advertising on Twitter or LinkedIn, it has also made
it much easier for unqualified wannabes to jam up the job search.
For Pradhan, who recruits middle to senior level marketing and
communications professionals, checking job candidates' social media is the
final stage in the process. She mentions a recent Asia-wide search for a
director of digital marketing as an example:
"We basically honed it down to five candidates. And at that
point, we actually looked at their online presence. We knew them on paper. We
had talked to them in person and interviewed them a few times. And then it was
time to see that they've actually been doing what they say."
For businesses, Twitter is just part of the evolving cornucopia of
platforms to share and engage with potential partners and customers. The same
principles that apply to selling goods are also valid for job-seekers marketing
their skills.
"Back in the day, the only way to generate authority in your
field was to speak at conferences and write papers and things like that,"
says Pradhan. "Now you can write a blog. Now you can post relevant content
to connect with an audience. You can create followers for yourself. It's a way
to build credibility."
Whatever the next platform for self-promotion, she urged jobseekers
not to abandon commonsense and real-world skills: "Nothing beats meeting
someone in person, shaking their hand and saying, 'I really want to work with
you.' That's what it comes down to. Among all these online experiences, the
success comes in moving them offline.
Let’s note that every example of using Twitter to gather job applicants is for the purpose of hiring a social media practitioner. Seems reasonable for that type of job. And certainly, a candidate would expect his tweets to be reviewed, given that Twitter is the most easily scanned and evaluated of the social media.
ReplyDeleteFor other types of jobs, it seems gimmicky and not that effective.
-Diana
Hi Diana,
DeleteThanks for sharing your insight on this post.I agree - all the examples given do relate to social media/marketing roles and therefore it's no suprise that there's close attention paid to candidates tweets etc.in that sector.
My take on this is that there is more scope than many realise for developing a powerful online presence that increases their job finding potential through the effective development of a personal brand. And just about the fastest and easiest way to create that personal brand is through social media...
So my conclusion is that for most people,whilst tweeting is unlikley to land you a job directly, if used deliberately with that purpose in mind, an appropraite social media strategy can be a very powerful enhancement to your prospects.