No Longer Just a Resume
Gone are the days when you can type up a resume, submit it to a job posting online or hand it to a recruiter at a hiring fair, and know that your work is done.
Now, if you want to be competitive in the job market, you need a self-marketing plan that includes your resume and a well-crafted LinkedIn profile.
These tools are the two most common ways a recruiter or hiring manager will get to know the professional you and understand the value you can add to their organization.
I know, it may seem like you should be able to do one or the other and call it good. However, in this case, it’s helpful to think of these tools as parts of the same whole—interrelated representations of the professional you and what you can do.
But to be successful in the job market, you also have to understand the best ways to use each of them.
The Targeted Resume
The good, old, sturdy, reliable targeted resume—not much has changed here. Yes, there are a thousand templates out there from which you may choose, and sure, you can create a functional or chronological resume depending on your needs. But, the targeted resume remains mostly what it’s always been.
The targeted resume is the tool you use for a specific job. It’s crafted to connect your experience to the needs laid out in the job description. It includes the standards—your contact information (now including your LinkedIn URL), your education, your professional experiences—as well as your summary or objective, qualification summary, and whatever the job posting requires.
The targeted resume takes time. It requires job-posting analysis as well as resume revision to turn your professional self into the ideal candidate for the job.
It is accepted anywhere and everywhere (after you reenter it into the Applicant Tracking System).
But here’s the thing, it’s not the only tool in your toolbox.
The LinkedIn Profile
I like to think of the LinkedIn profile as an expanded targeted resume or perhaps a targeted master resume.
Not all jobs are created equally, and if you are in a hurry to submit an application, but not so committed as to spend the time targeting your resume, you can often submit your LinkedIn profile through the Applicant Tracking System. So long as your LinkedIn profile is targeted to the general job or industry, it gives you a good chance. It’s not the same as a specifically honed and targeted resume, but if it’s the eleventh hour and you just don’t have it in you to revise your resume, this is a good option.
If you have submitted the targeted resume to your dream job, your LinkedIn account still has a role to play.
Like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, “If you build [your LinkedIn profile], they will come.”
And you should build it.
Don’t want to add another page to your finely crafted resume? Have experience that’s relevant, but not that relevant?
The LinkedIn profile is a great place to present a fuller version of your professional self. Your profile can fill in the potential missing pieces while showing who you are professionally and how awesome you would be for the hiring company.
Need help crafting your targeted resumes or LinkedIn profile? A Corporate America Supports You or Military Spouse Corporate Career Network employment specialist can assist. They also offer monthly live resume and LinkedIn training, as well as self-paced trainings in their learning management system. Their self-paced LinkedIn training takes you step by step through the process to develop your profile.
As you move through your job search journey, may the odds be ever in your favor—but make sure you have all the arrows you need in your quiver.
